Billie Eilish New Nike Shoe at Lollapalooza 2023 Chicago via Billie’s IG

Billie Eilish and Nike made sustainability news again this week, with the Tuesday [Aug.8] drop of the Nike x Billie Eilish - Nike Air Alpha Force 88 in Chicago Bulls colors.

Of course, few fashion bloggers wrote about the exciting news, even though one knows that if Billie Eilish does a new Nike drop, it’s gotta have some green cred beyond the affordable price.

Eilish is a devoted environmentalist and leverages her reputation always to move the fashion industry forward.

Billie Did Marilyn Monroe for Fur-Free in 2021

In September 2021, Billie Eilish stunned in a peach gown at the delayed Met Gala, held after the US Open and Emma Raducanu’s winning upset. The Met Gala night that followed the Open was Billie’s Marilyn Monroe moment and she left people speechless in her siren-call, Oscar de la Renta gown. People simply couldn’t believe she was Billie Eilish, with a long train that cascaded down the steps of the Metropolitan Museum.

The winning ‘Billie does Oscar’ moment came with a price, however. The price beyond Billie’s fee was the negotiated agreement that Oscar de la Renta would go completely fur free.

Billie dropped new Air Jordans that September 2021, right after the Met Gala. Each pair of those Billie Eilish Air Jordans were made with 100% vegan leather instead of the traditional leather and contained more than 20% recycled materials.

Billie’s New Kicks in Chicago

Many predicted that in 2023 Billie would rework the Nike Alpha Force Low. The obscure basketball style was originally designed in the '80s with basketball legend Michael Jordan, who famously donned a red colourway.

The mega-watt star wore her new kicks paired with a Chicago Bulls jersey at Lollapalooza 2023 Chicago last weekend. The scene was mega-watt, authentic Billie Eilish and the much-admired singer was generous with her kicks pics on her IG.

Nike Alpha Force Low x Billie Eilish designs then launched last Tuesday [shipping August 16, according to Billie’s website] in black and red colorways. Identifiable by its leather low-top, the style also features a strap across the forefoot and a 'ski-lock heel'.

True to form, the 21-year-old, who is famously vegan, incorporated recycled synthetic leather and a recycled textile upper into her design. Recycled TPU was used on the forefoot strap and both eyestays, with a recycled polyester lining.

In total, her shoe is 25% recycled, and I’m sure Billie was begging for 35%. The 25% is up from 20% in 2021. And Nike is really trying in the sustainability sector.

Billie’s New Black Algae Ink

The trumpets sounded for the black algae ink that colors the shoe. Yes, dear AOCC readers. Billie and Nike delivered a breakthrough with algae ink from LIVINGINK, used for the black heel midsole paint and tongue top graphic.

At the risk of being boring, we move to Vogue Business for facts on LIVINGINK, currently living on the downlow. Note that there is no sexual reference to this great new ink. Just the need to broadcast the facts about it. In a clever headline, Vogue B wrote: “Algae is the new black: Nike sneaker swaps petroleum for sustainable ink. . . Other brands can take note.” This is news to AOC and we live close to the topic of sustainability.

“If you look around the room and see something that’s black or colourful, all of that colour comes from petroleum,” says Scott Fulbright, CEO and co-founder of Living Ink. “We take waste product from the algae industry and we turn it into colourants that can be put into everything from the colour on my wallet to my iPhone case to the ink on a package or a shirt.”

Vogue B writes that the industry might be able to make serious and significant progress in this materials sector. Black is so important because as a dye or ink, it’s ubitiquous in fashion.

Martin Mulvihill, founding partner at investment firm Safer Made. challenges companies trying to produce a range of colors. Black is a commodity material says the chemist. “Black is the only one where if you can make a sustainable, safer black, you can build a whole company around just that pigment.”

Luxury Brand Colors Would Make a Big Sustainability Statement

Vogue B cites companies like Pili and Colorifix, who use bio-based ingredients and processes such as fermentation to develop a range of colours that can be used in fashion and beyond; Colorifix has partnerships with major fashion players including LVMH.

Returning to Mulvihill’s comments about black, the top-tier luxury market can also digest the cost of colors. They’ve been raising prices as a form of exclusivity and costs associated with vegan or bio-dyes and inks are another reason for the luxury customer to celebrate. Many could care less, but in recent years, I don’t think very many luxury customers still have that “let them eat cake” attitude about climate change.

Maybe Edward???

Who knows? Edward Enninful was in a group sailing the Mediterranean with major environmentalist Leonardo DiCaprio this weekend. Edward could take up the sustainability charge more directly, when he changes his career contract at Conde Nast in 2024.

Enninful already has a personal relationship with King Charles, who is an ardent environmentalist and walks his talk continually.

In addition to Nike, Living Ink, has worked with Coach, Patagonia, Tommy Hilfiger parent PVH and Gucci parent Kering. Levi’s launched black products as part of its Spring/Summer 2023 collection made with black pigment from Los Angeles-based Nature Coatings.

In 2022, innovation platform Fashion for Good launched a Black Pigment Pilot project — in partnership with Bestseller, Birla Cellulose, Kering and PVH Corp — to “validate and scale” black pigments derived from waste feedstocks such as industrial carbon, algae and wood that could replace synthetic dyes.

Safer Made’s Martin Mulvihill delivers yet another set of downlow facts about black dyes — one that might get us more inclined to choose colors.

“Carbon black is not only petroleum-based, it has polyaromatic hydrocarbons [a class of organic compounds associated with cancer, cardiovascular disease and poor foetal development], which isn’t great, and heavy metal contamination, which isn’t great,” he says. “Our interest in Nature Coatings and the other bio-based carbon black companies that we took a look at is the elimination of polyaromatic hydrocarbons, the elimination of heavy metals, and to have a renewable source for this widely used pigment.”

Living Ink’s black ink on Billie’s Nike kicks is based on a process that originated in Latin America about 2500 years ago. CEO Fulbright explains that the technology replaces a process that generates carbon emissions — conventional carbon black production — with one that removes them.

By using organic waste as a feedstock, instead of sending it to a landfill or incinerator where it would generate its own emissions, he says Living Ink can sequester the carbon instead.

Billie, I saw your Nike x Billie Eilish - Nike Air Alpha Force 88 beauties on multiple fashion blogs and nobody was telling the big breakthrough story. You can count on AOC to be your messenger, girl.

And that was a great article in Vogue Business. It’s members only but try it in the link above. WSJ Magazine gives us share links, but Vogue Business runs a pretty tight ship on sharing. ~ Anne