This is a big undertaking. And it’s only possible through constantly striving to be at the forefront, finding new and innovative ways to lead the way forward and acting role model on all levels. 

It is about adopting a sustainable behaviour, changing old, comfortable ways. It is about challenging the norm, never settling for second best. By providing transparency throughout the production chain all the way to the end consumer, sharing information and expertise, we can create engagement and make decisions which respect the planet and our future. 

Swedish Stockings designs and produces tights to last longer, and longevity is an essential building block when working towards shifting the idea of tights being a wear-and-tear item to a garment you can wear time and time again. 

Wearability
A pair of tights are normally worn a handful of times and then discarded, adding to the other 8 billion tights already thrown to landfill, each year.

A study by Mistra Future Fashion claims that even just doubling the number of uses for a garment’s lifecycle eliminated almost 50% of the production impact. 

Designing for longevity
Our ambition is to improve the amount of wears you get out of a pair of Swedish Stockings tights. 

Functional improvements such as extended toe re-inforcements, soles on sheer tights and material technology ensuring a longer life for the product are just a few of the upgrades we constantly test and improve to achieve more durable products. 

Core collection 
During the pandemic we have put a greater focus on our core collection, our permanent assortment of neutral tights. We have reduced the number of SKU’s at the same time as ensuring ther range is complete for both our customers and distributors. 

Swedish Stockings are proud to say that we have fair and reliable long-term business relationships based on mutual trust. Our suppliers and other business partners play an important role in realising our goals and aspirations, and they are expected to live up to the same social and environmental standards as Swedish Stockings adhere to. 

Our factories only use energy from renewable resources, such as wind or solar. Most of them have their own solar panels, and produce between 35-80% of their own energy. The remaining energy is derived from renewable certified third party. 

Our dyeing facility use equipment resulting in a 20% less energy consumption as well as re-using 50% of the water, whilst the remaining 50% is purified in a specifically designed pool system, leaving it fit to use again after one week.

Apart from this, the factories pay close attention ensuring to avoid overproduction, any leftover yarns are used to produce samples. They collaborate with specialised companies to ensure that all paper and plastic is purposely recycled. 

The production process of our stockings contains several steps to transform raw materials to a finalised product. In some cases, all steps are performed in-house, but sometimes the products have to be sent between different factories. Let us explain what the process looks like.

Knitting
All of our products are knitted in Italy, not only because the Italians have been producing high quality hosiery for a long time, but also because the factories we work with have extremely high ethical, social and environmental standards. 

The majority of our products are 3D knitted, a technique where the hosiery is knitted with three elastane threads instead of one, making the tights which gives more elasticity and softness to the product so that it conforms to your every curve. Easily put, 3D knitting is the HD version of hosiery.

Dyeing
In the knitting stage, the yarn is considered “raw” as the dyeing process only occurs after the hosiery has been knitted. The dyeing facility is located next to our knitting facility, and the dyes used are vegan. 

By using state of the art equipment, the dyeing facility is able to consume 20% less energy than a conventional process. The equipment runs on a combination of natural gas and solar energy. 

The facility is also able to re-use 50% of the water in the dyeing process, and the remaining 50% is purified through an ozone disinfection and micro bacteria process, in a specifically designed pool system.

Fibre use
The polyamide we source to create our stockings are not raw materials, rather they are pre-consumer or post-consumer waste materials from nylon industries, such as excess remnants from the sportswear industries. Although nylon is a non-natural, oil-based product, by using nylon remnants from other industries in our stockings, we save this excess waste from being sent to landfills to never (or rather, very slowly) decompose. 

All our materials are OEKO-TEX Standard 100 certified, meaning that the raw material must comply with the laboratory test criterias that ensures that it does not contain harmful substances that can be dangerous to humans and nature, this ensures that the products meet the ecological requirements.

The natural fibre materials used for the products have been produced in accordance with organic farming standards recognized by GOTS and processed according to GOTS. We are also certified with Bluesign, which implies acting responsibly and sustainably in regard with people, the environment and resources. This ensures consistent transparency and traceability for all processing steps down to raw materials.

For a full material list, read the whole sustainability edit here.

Annual carbon impact reduction
Minimising our carbon footprint is important to us at Swedish Stockings. Whilst currently working towards making improvements in the areas of packaging and transport, we are also working towards having a better understanding of our emission in all areas of the business, to be able to make a real difference.

Energy Usage
We are constantly striving to be more efficient in our transportation methods in order to reduce our CO2-emissions. By carefully choosing our transportation partners, it enables us to continously keep lowering our impact. 

- We produce in Europe to decrease the total distance our goods are travelling. 

- We ship in the most environmentally friendly way possible through a third party that only uses trucks with green energy fuels. 

- The third party that we use for online sales has goals in line with The United Nations Agenda 2030 as well as The European Union goal to be emission less by the year of 2050 and aims to provide a more sustainable supply chain. 

Packaging improvements
Our packaging is made from FSC-certified cardboard, ensuring it is made from responsibly managed forests. To protect the fragile hosiery inside, we use fully recyclable polybags. At the moment there are no viable alternatives to the polybag, but it is an ongoing quest. 

Innovations by Swedish Stockings is a promise to ourselves, the industry and our customers that we will continue to push the boundaries of innovation in hosiery no matter what, either through products or concepts. 

To be classed as an Innovations by Swedish Stockings, the product need to be unique to us – for example a new type of product or use of a new or improved material which has a positive impact on the product itself and the industry as a whole. It needs to fit within our vision of being the most sustainable hosiery brand worldwide. 

We innovate within the areas of production, product development, materials, dyeing techniques and longevity. 

To help clean up the hosiery industry and provide a better alternative to modern pantyhose we started Swedish Stockings Recycling Club in 2016.

With the ambition to divert stockings from ending up in a landfill, anyone can send us their worn, torn or used tights and we will grind them down and add them as filler material together with recycled fibreglass. 

The new, up-cycled material is then used to make tanks for use as oil and grease traps in the commercial industry. Glamorous? No. Sustainable? Yes! 2020 we also launched a series of tables made from the same material, using the same technique.

We estimate that we have recycled thousands of pantyhose since inception, and our goal is to completely close the loop in our production, to be able to fully regenerate old pantyhose into new ones, when the technology exists.

To guide us in our mission and sustainability efforts, we continuously work towards a set of goals that help us improve in all areas of our business. 

Diversity
We have achieved increased diversity in our brand imagery and as an employer, through multiple nationalities, gender and age. Working with diversity is ongoing work for us which we plan to increase further during 2022.

Cause Marketing
We have established repeated collaborations with The Kvinna to Kvinna Foundation, with donations and educations as well as donations to WWF and Bröstcancerförbundet.

Educate
We actively continue to learn through innovations and new knowledge. We spread our awareness and educate ourselves and our surrounding through our social platform.

Recycling Club 
Our ambition is to simplify the recycling process, making it easier and more accessible to recycle old tights with us. 

The world’s most comfortable tights
Together with our community we have set out to produce the world’s most comfortable tights. The result will be introduced in August 2022.

Traceability
All styles fully traceable and certified by 2023.