Kaya, we acknowledge the traditional custodians of this place, Whadjuk Noongar boodja and their continued connection to land, water, and community. We pay our respects to their elders past, present and future of the Noongar nation
Ocean Remedy is here to create inclusive, sustainable swimwear and activewear for healthy humans and healthy oceans
I named this brand Ocean Remedy, because the ocean is our remedy. I want to provide a better choice in sustainable swimwear and versatile active wear for as many shapes and sizes as I can, so more folks can get their ocean remedy. I want you to feel welcome, to feel included and to get salty.
I’m not a fashionista, I’m a Biologist, an environmentalist, and an ocean lover. Time in and near the ocean brings happiness and health benefits. If we love something, we will protect it. The act of maintaining a healthy ocean, also maintains healthy humans and healthy ecosystems. Every creature on this planet derived from the ocean. By loving the ocean – swimming, surfing, diving, snorkelling, paddling, beach combing, just being in and near the ocean we receive health benefits and our love of the ocean increases. By protecting our oceans, we protect our own health.
With so many humans on this planet, never have our daily choices mattered so much. I truly believe each time we can make the better choice in our food, clothing, and transport we have power to create a sustainable future. We all benefit when we slow down, find a great fit, buy quality over quantity, and repair our things.
Our Mission: To create inclusive sustainable swimwear and activewear for healthy humans and healthy oceans.
Our Values:
We are ocean lovers.
We are for all humans, we welcome and value diversity.
We use creativity to design out waste.
We believe in Sustainable Consumption (SDG 12) – choosing quality over quantity.
Ocean Remedy is founded on sustainability principles and stems from a life-long love of the ocean and getting salty. We actively participate to make sustainable swimwear and versatile activewear. We innovate with our fabric choices, we reuse textiles and aim to create minimal, ideally zero waste. We want to provide you with a great fit to ensure you love your swimwear so much, you will want to wear it forever. You can also return it to us to repair, and you can wear it again. We believe in quality over quantity – sustainable and mindful consuming. We believe in fair and ethical production from the best high-quality materials. Our fabrics must be either upcycled, reused, recycled or natural fibres.
We regularly clean up plastic litter, but we also choose plastic free products for our brand and personal lives. We support AUSMAP microplastic research, collecting data on Western Australian shorelines. We are one of a handful of brands in the world to have conducted microplastic research associated with fashion, you can read our report here.
In our Fremantle studio-store we work on minimal waste design. Here we make our minimalist surf leggings and activewear from either recycled plastic Repreve fabrics or cotton – designed for land and sea, the only leftover fabric when we make these becomes a hair tie. We buy and print these Repreve fabrics in Australia, and the cotton is even knitted in Australia. We are presently working on an outerwear collection made in store. Limited edition prints by local artists like Sofie Seyah, on beautiful sustainable fabrics from our neighbours in Indonesia featuring LenzingTM Modal (Eucalyptus) blended with cotton.
Our SunSmart and reversible swimwear is crafted by Ms Ju and her team in their Bali cottage studio from recycled fabrics. The crew in Bali are so proud of every piece they produce, forging love and expertise into super high quality, sustainable swimwear. These pieces have been shipped from Bali to Freo for the past 6 years, in the same reusable bags we made in the very beginning from water-proof umbrella fabric. We say no to single use plastic, which brings me to thinking about our sustainable choices, in brief:
"Sustainability for me means that it can continue indefinitely. If we take that definition of sustainability, it has to be good for both people and planet. You cannot protect the planet if we don't protect the people. You cannot have poverty and environmental protection, it just doesn't work."
One: People for Planet. We can’t undo the harm we are inflicting on this blue planet without looking after people. We need to embrace diversity and act with kindness. We create in sizes 2XS – 4XL. We value labour and participate to eliminate poverty. We provide opportunities in our Freo store for ocean inspired events and beach clean ups. We encourage reuse such as our wetsuit exchange that gives to social impact programs fund raising for Yayasan Dompu School in Sumbawa with @Millennium Kids.
Two: Education - No Green Wash. Green wash is a tool brands use to sell to you based on a single proposition, such as recycled fabrics (it’s a big one) so you’ll forget about all their poor choices, such as slave labour, wasteful practices, sweeping sustainability generalisations and exaggerations, and feel good about buying their thing. No brand is saving the ocean with recycled plastics, or one bikini at a time, no one. Yes, recycling is vital and good, but less than 1% of recycled fabric came from the ocean, you can learn more about recycled fabric systems here. We all need to use less plastic to start with, and let’s face it, recycling systems need work. Green wash is a tool to get you to buy mindlessly. We want you to buy mindfully, consciously.
Three: Quality over quantity. We create versatile pieces that you can wear every day, and to the beach. We make to the highest quality so your garment will last. If you do get damage to your garment, then let’s repair it before you replace it. At the end of its life, let’s recycle it.
Four: Sustainability solutions. We repair our garments. We avoid single use plastic. When shipping we use only recycled paper products. Any tape we use is BioGone landfill biodegradable packing tape. We ship carbon neutral. We print on recycled papers, using veggie inks. We reuse tags and labels. We only choose recycled fabrics, natural fibres or reused textiles. In our Freo store we collect toothbrushes and toothpaste tubes for recycling into pallets with Terracycle. Here we also support a curated selection of local creatives to provide plastic-free, natural and healthy solutions including
@sofie_seyah @available_offline @sunslayeraus @fairspacefairtrade @vdeovegandeodorant @eliabalmsandblends @pinklakeroad_australia @wrappareusables @sobohosoap @emflower.co @etiko_fairtrade @flowvessel @whollygrailhub @goodly.gosh @arivelastudios
The foundation of Ocean Remedy is science and design. We know the fashion world has a long way to go in producing a truly sustainable product and that every product in every market makes an impact. Rarely can the physical impact be positive. However, the educational and social impact opportunities are many. We welcome inquiries about our production and aim to be transparent in our practices. You can follow our journey on Instagram, Facebook or email Claire. We thank you so much for your interest in Ocean Remedy and hope you’ll join our journey. You can subscribe to follow the journey below.