Further Information

WE NEED YOUR HELP

You can read all about us below, but first we want you to know why you will be reading about us.

You can help us change things, turn things around.
We need money to develop our business and create better circumstance for our production facilities.
The money that comes in goes straight towards creating better working conditions so that we can work more efficiently and sustainably. Of course, we will return the favour with a gift and good happy wishes - of your own choice,

WE ARE ÖDN WEAR

ÖDN WEAR is a woman lead company from the Faroe Islands. We produce wearable fashion from abandoned festival tents, our intention is to reduce waste and grow awareness around waste.

Our team leaders are Heidi Lindenskov Róadóttir, Sólvá Lindenskov Róadóttir, Unn Baldursdóttir. We each have our responsibilities to make the company work, Unn is head of design, she has a degree in fashion design and is using her brilliant talent for ÖDN WEAR. Heidi is the head behind the idea, she started the company whilst working on her business degree and later encouraged Sólvá and Unn to join. Sólvá has a degree in marketing, which she also uses for ÖDN WEAR's benefits.

All three women have developed a personal relationship towards sustainability and the Zero Waste community.

ÖDN WEAR is a play on words, in english it refers to wearable fashion, and the word ÖDN brings some sort of connection to northern mythology. In Faroese ÖDN (Ódn) refers to stormy weather, the english word "wear" sounds like the Faroese word for weather, so on the Faroe Islands the interpretation of our name translates to stormy weather. Fun, right?

FROM FESTIVAL WASTE TO FASHION

To shed a light on how comprehensive the problem is we will take an example from the Faroese G! Festival in 2019. It was documented and forecasted that an approximate of 550 tents would be attending the festivals campsite. Out of the estimated 550 tents, around 400 of them were left behind after the festival ended. In percentages thats about 73% of the total amount. Now thats only one festival on the Faroe Islands, where we have several festivals happening through out the summer holidays. If you add up all the festivals you’ll see the numbers of waste growing rapidly.

Now imagine that on a global scale, at festivals such as Tomorrowland and Roskilde Festival, you will be able to magnify those numbers. The impact this has on our nature is extensive, and should be taken in all seriousness. Most tents are made from non-biodegradable materials, including Nylon and PVC, therefore abandoning a tent in nature is damaging to the natural resources as well as the animal life in the area.

This is why ÖDN WEAR was born, we see these problems, we want to prevent and inform the public on this matter. We want everyone to have a hand in preventing and reducing waste, we want to encourage everyone to reuse and up-cycle.

Our solution to the problem is quite simple. We saw the material tents are made from, this material is often used in outerwear as well, therefore it was only clear to us that we would up-cycle the tents into wearables. Right from the start we based our vision on the 12th Sustainable Development Goal (SDG), and we are now working towards fulfilling several of the SDGs.

Our solution is to clean up the camp sites after the festivals finish, clean the tents, and anything that can be recycled, up-cycle and turn them into outerwear. This prevents the tents from polluting the environment by being left in nature or being burnt at wastelands, either way contributing to global warming.

Our solution also brings awareness towards the waste each individual leaves behind themselves. We have experienced a spike in interest on individual waste and carbon footprint after we started campaigning with ÖDN WEAR, especially from young adults, being the main source where we receive our tents from. Our customers are eager to lend a helping hand, they want to be a part of the change. Our products let them be a part of a great movement, we bring personality and activism to our products.

Our goal is to be able to reduce the waste from festivals noticeably more before we move to another problem. The idea with ÖDN WEAR is to up-cycle where we can, our scaling intentions are based on our rooted care for the environment. Tents are only just the beginning.

NOW AND ONWARDS

For now ÖDN WEAR mainly operates on the Faroe Islands, our intentions are to operate in each country where we collect tents. This in order to bring the pollution from transportation to a minimum, as well as bringing work and economic growth to where we operate.

On the Faroe Islands we have accumulated contracts with each festival that we take ownership of the abandoned tents after the festival is off, similar contracts are available for us in Denmark for Roskilde Festival and Smukfest. After collecting the tents we immediately take them to a certified cleaner, which only uses eco-friendly products, then we cut the materials into metre lengths so that it becomes easier to access for our designers. Our designs take inspiration in the Faroese nature, we create practical clothing with the intention that it can be used on a day to day basis but also as rain gear. Each product will include a QR code and a story, so that you can see where your product origins from, and how many products were made from the same festival your product origins from. This way we create a consumer community as well as personality to the item in your possession. For example, the jackets from G! Festival 2019 have a story that goes like this:

Origin: TENT - Location: GØTA - Headline: FATBOY SLIM - Current Occupation: JACKET

We differentiate ourselves from our competitors, in that our focus heavily relies on being sustainable in every aspect of our business. Along with that we do have the advantage to add personality to our products, as they all have a previous story to them that we help live on through the next owner. We also add the possibility of returning items when they are done serving you, or we encourage reselling or gifting the items in order to prolong the life of the item. Upon return we will clean the items and recreate as appropriate.

AWARDS AND NOMINATIONS

ÖDN WEAR was established in 2019, this year they also were awarded the title as the Faroese Youth Innovation of the Year.
Later the same year ÖDN WEAR participated in a start-up accelerator where the idea was nominated for participation in the danish Creative Business Cup 2020.
This year ÖDN WEAR has been nominated to participate in the Arctic Future Challenge, where they will be relying on public votes from the 20th of july onwards.