RE49 is an Italian start-up company that produces the most sustainable shoes in the world, embracing sustainability and circular economy across all stages of production. The brand creates vegan, limited-edition shoes and utilises the Blockchain technology to ensure full transparency. The shoes are made of recycled beach chairs, sails, fabrics, tyres and more, ensuring a drastic cut on CO2 emissions, because waste materials are regenerated and cleaned without further processing. RE49 is also investing in novel solutions to minimise the amount of material they use in the first place and reduce waste.

The materials used for every collection are recovered from Italian beaches, seaports, warehouses, at the end of the summer season. Normally, beach umbrellas and deckchairs, sails, spinnakers, fabrics, jeans and car tyres end up in landfills.   

“Reducing our environmental impact has been our top priority since day one. At RE49, we are proud to have reinvented the way we produce shoes, by redefining our family business into an innovative start-up company that preserves the environment. This way, from a traditional leather shoe production, we are now creating shoes with recycled, recovered, vegan materials that are otherwise wasted and could easily end up in landfill sites”, says Nicola Masolini, visionary and CEO of RE49. It was back in 1949 when Valentino Masolini started to recycle fabric scraps and abandoned military uniforms to make shoes. It is now, in 2021, when his great-grandson, Nicola Masolini, reuses fabrics, jeans, beach umbrellas, beach deckchairs, sails, spinnakers and car tyres to create shoes.

All RE49 shoe collections are made with the circular economy model and are PETA-approved vegan and Cruelty Free, which means that every single part of their shoes does not contain any material of animal origin and was not tested on animals.

Re49's production cycle is closed, because materials that already exist are transformed into shoes. Materials are recycled and infinitely reused, waste and emissions are reduced. And, in the spirit of “Less is more”, RE49 takes extra effort to increase the durability of the shoes, which are all-season appropriate. Also, the company is working on a method to minimise waste by creating a closed-loop circular economy solution and re-converting used shoes into a new product, when their functional cycle comes to an end.

Innovation and transparency are fundamental, for this reason Re49 apply the Blockchain technology to their shoes to ensure full traceability of all materials within their supply chain - inside the RE49 shoe tongue there is a microchip with detailed information about their production process and materials.

Their production method is 100% carbon neutral, and they aim at reducing our footprint to zero in less than five years, also by partnering with companies that share our concerns and objectives. Moreover, Re49 are planning to switch to renewable energy and implement water saving methods during manufacturing. In the fashion industry, sustainability and circular economy are the solution to cut on CO2 emissions and save water through the production process of shoes and apparel.

Photo taken by Lauren Kan on Unsplash