Unravelling the threads that make up Prada Re-Nylon, What We Carry is a branded content series of films that explore the diverse multinational sources of resources – from the deep ocean to the factory floor – and chart the sustainable materials harnessed used to create ECONYL®. Documented by ‘Prada reporters’ and specialist reporters and photojournalists from National Geographic, each of these films focuses on a different origin point of the multitude of recycled raw materials used to produce ECONYL® for the Re-Nylon collection.

For the fourth instalment of What We Carry, National Geographic Explorer and photo journalist Hannah Reyes Morales and Chinese actor and Prada reporter Wei Daxun travel to China – renowned for centuries as a home of textile production. They have visited the clothing factory Parawin in Ganzhou City, part of the province of Jiangxi in southeastern China – housing around 300 workers across every part of garment production, from pattern cutting to construction and finishing.

In collaboration with ECONYL® textile yarn producer Aquafil, Parawin are now committed to recycling their discarded textile cuttings: offcuts are organised via fiber content and transported regularly to Aquafil’s Shanghai base, to be transformed into ECONYL® regenerated nylon, and then woven into Prada Re-Nylon. Parawin is the first factory to partner with Aquafil to recycle their waste fabric – but they blaze a trail to be followed by others. ECONYL® yarn is totally recyclable, and can be regenerated an infinite number of times: so Prada Re-Nylon bucks damaging age-old convention of garment production. This is fashion created with no waste, and open to boundless possibilities. After episodes charting the recycling of diverse, divergent materials – carpet in North America, discarded fishing-nets in Australia and Africa – this penultimate chapter focuses on waste within the fashion industry itself, which is address, combatted, and ultimately reversed through the endlessly recyclable nature of Prada Re-Nylon. It shows that what we carry can make a difference.
The Prada Re-Nylon project launched on June 24, 2019 with Episode 1 shot in Arizona; Episode 2, on Lake Ossa in Cameroon; and Episode 3 in Mahanga Bay, off the coast of New Zealand. Informed by the observations and knowledge of Prada reporters and National Geographic experts, a total of five episodes draws the viewer through the unique transparent supply-chain, spanning the globe, that comprises the ground-breaking production of ECONYL® and the Prada Re-Nylon collection.