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Adriana Santanocito & Enrica Arena

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Orange Fiber

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Orange Fiber

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Italy

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What makes Adriana Santanocito & Enrica Arena Global Shakers?

Italian duo, Adriana Santanocito & Enrica Arena have found an ingenious way to bring circularity to the fashion industry.

Their outfit Orange Fiber creates sustainable fabrics from the mammoth amounts of waste left over from the Italian citrus juice industry.

To produce the fabric, Orange Fiber uses “hundreds of thousands” of tons of citrus juice byproduct, colloquially known as “pastazzo,” that otherwise would be wasted.

Orange Fiber was born out of a fashion design thesis idea of Adriana’s to create a sustainable fabric.

Adriana, a fashion student, teamed up with Enrica, an International Communication and Cooperation student, and with the support of the Polytechnic University of Milan the pair filed an Italian patent, which was extended to international protocol in the U.S., Brazil, India, Mexico and the European Union.

In Italy alone, every year, more than 700.000 tons of citrus waste is produced and, until Orange Fiber, no one has developed a viable alternative for its disposal.

“It is for these reasons that we have worked to unite oranges, which are typical of Sicily, and world-renown Italian excellence in textiles, developing a disruptive technology that creates an innovative material out of industrial byproducts,” says Orange Fiber.

Combining two pillars of Italian heritage — textiles and food — Orange Fiber is bringing together the demands of both innovation and sustainability in the fashion industry.

For their commitment to sustainability in fashion, the designer duo has also been recognised by the United Nations, as innovations such as theirs are crucial to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.

Their fabrics have been used by the likes of H&M and Salvatore Ferragamo.

Tags: citrus waste, fashion, FashionTech, sustainability, sustainable, sustainable fashion

Last updated: October 21, 2019