Alexandre Lucas created the Estampille brand which offers ecological socks and tights, in recycled cotton and nylon.

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  • A young Rennais has created a company which produces socks and tights from recycled products. 

  • By working from cotton and recycled nylon, he explains that he saves up to 80% water compared to “classic” pairs, which require a lot of water for their manufacture.

  • He promises that his products, woven in France, are more robust than those of mass distribution.

From head to toe, fashion is a polluting and water-hungry industry, so 500 liters are needed to make a pair of socks and 750 for a pair of tights.

Stunned by these figures, which he discovered during his training, a professional license in the design of sports products, Alexandre Lucas, a young Rennais, sets himself the challenge of creating a French brand of socks made from recycled materials.

By relying on cotton (in Spain) and nylon (in Israel) recycling channels, from which recycled yarn is sent to France for manufacture, he launched the “Estampille” brand in October 2019. After a campaign crowdfunding, it delivers its first pairs in February 2020.

"We are reducing the quantity of water required by 80%"

For its manufacture, a pair of Estampille socks requires less than five liters of water.

“We break the cotton fiber, and as it is a fairly fragile natural material, we add recycled polyester to make it more resistant.

The cotton comes from pattern scraps or old clothes which are then crushed in a factory in Spain ”, explains Alexandre Lucas.

The yarn is then sent to France, near Limoges where the socks are knitted.

The estampille socks are woven from recycled cotton and recycled polyester.

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"Customers have asked us for a solution to tights that spin quickly and use nylon made from petroleum," explains Alexandre Lucas.

It launched this offer in November 2020 thanks to a partnership with a company located near Montpellier which is developing a fiber made from recycled nylon.

"We are reducing by 80% the quantity of water needed for the production of our tights," assures the young entrepreneur.

Our process uses less water because we recycle the existing material so we don't need to search for oil and turn it into plastic.

We break the one we already have into small granules that we recast to make a thread.

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Estampille tights are made from recycled nylon.

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The recycled nylon is transformed into yarn in Israel and then wrapped, that is to say surrounded by elastane yarn to be more resistant, in Normandy.

"The tights are knitted in Montpellier by machines, using a technique that ensures uniformity of the stitches guaranteeing good resistance", specifies Alexandre Lucas.

If it is not "infilable", it promises that it is much more robust than a pantyhose of mass distribution.

The use of French labor has a cost which is reflected in the price of the product: 15 euros for a pair of socks, 20 to 22 euros for tights, depending on their opacity.

Alexandre Lucas is already thinking of new ranges of socks: in recycled wool and "in natural material respectful of the environment" for a special "sport" range.

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  • Textile

  • Water

  • Consumption

  • Style

  • Planet