Turning waste into unique pieces of footwear with the help of an army of slow fashion “heroes”, the Portugal-based startup, Skizo, is giving PET bottles and fishing nets a glorious second life far from the ocean.
Combining two of the top trends for consumer brands in 2022 – purpose and customization – the sneakers, face masks, tote and clutch bags produced by Skizo Shoes – put slow fashion in the thick of one of the world’s greatest challenges, reversing the flow of plastic waste into our oceans.
Founded by passionate Portuguese power couple André Facote and Andreia Coutinho, the company has grown hand-in-hand with their son, Lorenzo. Their tiny toddlers’ encounter with a rogue piece of plastic on a visit to the beach three years ago was the Genesis moment for their deep entrepreneurial dive into stopping the flow of plastic waste into the world’s waterways and oceans.
Their stylish response was to offer eco-friendly consumers a chance to create their own unique piece of fashion from rubbish pulled from the rivers, beaches and oceans close to Porto and Lisbon.
Each of Skizo Shoes items is fully customizable by the client, a canny way of putting power in the hand of their customers and reducing even further the waste associated with fast fashion designs that flop when they hit the shops to find that fickle consumers have already moved on to the next fashion fad.
Repurposing PET & Fishing Nets
It’s a brilliant way to repurpose PET bottles and fibers that might have otherwise ended up flowing into the oceans. Now the couple are also teaming up with more than 500 fishermen in Portugal to encourage the recycling of their unwanted nets and to engage them in their mission. It’s estimated that 20% of all waste in the oceans comes from marine activity and 80% of ocean-based plastic waste comes from land.
“We have to conserve the oceans because we hear in school that the lungs of the planet are the Amazon but the reality is that the lungs of our planet are our oceans as they collect most of the CO2 that we are creating and that’s why we are focusing on solving problems and the new blue economy to solve the problem,” Facote told AdaPETation on a call between the Star Wars-themed celebrations for Lorenzo’s 5th birthday.
“We know that we are just a small drop in the ocean because until we stop sending garbage to the ocean, our project is just a drop. We’ve collected three tons in three years and every day a garbage truck is dumped in the ocean, every day 15 tons of plastic is dumped in the ocean, and we just collect three tonnes in three years. It’s hard for us to solve the problem but we know that our mission is to talk and show that it is possible to make something that can help save the oceans right now.”
With little experience building their own brand but with a solid background in business, André and Andreia, embarked on creating products that would have an impact on the problem even though they knew it would be impossible to do so on their own.
With even less experience in designing shoes, the key to making Skizo a success was enlisting the help of their customers in creating their designs. All of their products are completely unique, offering their clients the chance to design their products before purchasing.
“Skizo is an Italian word, it’s the sketch and it’s what we do and what we give to our customers,” says Facote. “We give a sketch of our product or a template of our product and the customer chooses the colors and the materials they want. We produce it and then we send the product out to our customer. When our customer receives their product they know that it is produced only for them. It’s unique.”
Customizable Slow Fashion As a Solution
Each of the company’s fully customizable sneakers take 20 days to arrive from their Portuguese factory, with each pair of shoes containing the equivalent of 36 bottles collected by fishermen off the Portuguese coastline. Their line of eco-friendly face masks and bags for plastic collection or simply to get the shopping are also made from upcycled PET bottles and fibers.
It’s far from the original value proposition to sell recycled yarns to fabric producers. They pivoted from this flawed plan after discovering that most fabric producers would rather pay less for cheap imports from China. Selling directly to the consumer and embracing the idea of handing power over to their clients to create their own designs has been revolutionary, according to Facote.
“Right now we are living the digital revolution,” says Facote, “The next industrial revolution could be mass customization because we think that if we can customize a product for the client, we can just produce on demand like we are doing. That’s our vision. We just produce our products on demand. We don’t have any stock. We just use the right resources for the market demand. And we think that that is the future of some sectors, including the fashion sector.”
It’s also why the founders are incredibly grateful to their customers, who after their light-saber wielding Mandalorian Lorenzo, are the true protagonists of their fledgling earth-based adventure.
“We call our customers heroes, because at the end of the day, they are the heroes,” says Facote. “After all, they help us to collect that plastic from the ocean and then give a new life to that garbage or all that waste.”
As the company seeks investors to help it scale their operation, André and Andreiam, are dreaming of having an even greater impact in Lorenzo’s second five years.
“We are working with a big consortium in Portugal with 30 tonnes of garbage per month including PET and old fishing nets,” says Facote. “Probably next year we will have gone from three tonnes in three years to 30 tonnes per month. That’s a giant leap.”
May the force be with them!
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