The Story of Jeux De Vagues

We love learning about the amazing projects that our Harmony guests are working on!  Our friend Katherine Terrell is the founder of eco-conscious swimwear brand Jeux De Vagues (you can find her bikinis at Harmony’s Tiendita).  We thought it’d be great to share a little bit more about her and how she got started in sustainable fashion. Thanks for the writing Katherine!

From Bag Bans to Bikinis — The Story of Jeux De Vagues

How it began

It’s funny how dreams get realized. Sometimes they begin with an idea so outrageous that it bubbles up with zero gravitas. As if that could ever really happen. As if. “What if we lived in Costa Rica, and I sold bikinis for a living?”

I was pregnant with my son when the idea crossed my mind. Pregnant and still stoked as ever, I had to relearn how to surf with a big belly full of baby. That meant knee-paddling into waves. My body underwent a radical transformation, and it gave me a profound understanding of how dynamic women’s bodies are.

Activism

The year before I got pregnant marked my transition out of actively volunteering as an activist for Surfrider Foundation.

For five years, I served in multiple capacities for the Los Angeles chapter, from tabling events to working on clean water task forces, eventually becoming the Rise Above Plastics coordinator and a member of the chapter’s Executive Committee. During my time with Surfrider, there was a growing environmental movement that was exciting and hard to ignore.

There was emerging awareness of the “Texas-sized” mass of floating plastic garbage in the Pacific Ocean, which we now know to be more like a plastic smog that permeates all oceans. We learned about the dangers of plastic exposure, such as BPA, to human health. It was all eye-opening, shocking, and information that, for a die-hard environmentalist like me, begged to be spread.

I was up to task to evangelize. The Rise Above Plastics program was designed to do exactly that. Armed with a short and digestible presentation, we spoke to corporate offices, rotary clubs, elementary schools and colleges. Sometimes it was just a handful of people. At other times, we filled auditoriums.

The significance of this program was timed with proposed legislation to ban single-use plastic bags in Los Angeles and Santa Monica. A domino effect ensued, and city after city enacted their own municipal bag bans, starting in late 2010 with LA County and culminating in 2014 with a statewide ban across California.

For the work I had done with Rise Above Plastics, I was awarded Surfrider Foundation’s Wavemaker of the Year Award in 2011.

From bag bans to bikinis

As a surfer and an activist, I saw there was a real need for a better option out there for bikinis, one that would bridge the fashion sense I craved for in a bikini while coming from a company whose ethos I could get behind.

There was no question that Jeux De Vagues would be more than just another bikini brand. It would be purpose-driven. Material choice was was on top of the list. Our fabrics in solid colors are made with ECONYL®, which is made of pre and post-consumer waste (nylon scraps / fishnets and carpet fluff), and our printed fabrics are made from recycled water bottles.

Using fabrics from recycled materials are great, but we are aware they are not the perfect solution. Our ultimate goal and challenge is to create a closed-loop system in the manufacturing and use of our bikinis, where rather than going cradle-to-grave (to landfill), our bikinis are cradle-to-cradle (regenerated or reused).

To show our commitment to the environment, we became a member of 1% For The Planet at inception. This year, we are seeking certification as a B-Corp company, which would meet rigorous standards of social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency.

What began as a casual daydream is now a business and full-fledged reality. I am indeed selling bikinis in Costa Rica, where our family spends a part of the year.

We head south to slow down and to rewild ourselves in the jungle, and — let’s not kid ourselves — to surf everyday. The little surf town of Nosara has become a second home to us, where we enjoy the simple pleasures of surfing, sunset chasing, beachcombing, and mindful being.

My days of activism are not over. Through Jeux De Vagues, I want to empower women to be their best selves through surfing, and to be active citizens in their community. It means seeing ourselves as powerful women in and out of the water.

When a woman wears Jeux De Vagues, I want them to remember that they are  warriors, and they can do whatever they set their minds to.

 

This entry was posted on Friday, March 9th, 2018 at 3:33 pm. It is filed under Costa Rica, Creative Culture, Sustainability. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.