Kloters, an Italian apparel start-up, is set to launch a new, zero-impact t-shirt that is able to clean the surrounding air from pollution. RepAir is the first smart t-shirt developed to clean the air around the wearer, featuring the ability to clean the pollutants produced by two cars, thereby bringing a whole new understanding to sustainable fashion.
With more than 2 billion t-shirts sold each year, undergarment start-up Kloters asked themselves what would happen if there was one t-shirt that could help combat air pollution. The end result of their work is the genderless RepAir t-shirt, designed in Milan and produced in Italy, which utilises “the Breath”, a patented material that is able to capture pollutants including NOx, Sox, bacteria as well as unpleasant odours.
The t-shirt incorporates “the Breath” cloth in a pocket on the front, which is composed of two external printable layers, a water-resistant anti-bacterial fabric that encloses an intermediate core made from dioxin absorbent fibre which is enhanced by nano molecules that are capable of absorbing and retaining pollutants in the atmosphere. The air passed through the pocket and flows over the insert, trapping pollutants and unpleasant odours in the inner layer and releasing clean air.
Just like a normal air-filtering system the component needs to be replaced. The RepAir t-shirt is said to work for six months before “the Breath” cloth component needs to be replaced. At the moment the air-filtering cannot be recycled according to a report from Eco-Business, but Kloters is currently working with the producers of “the Breath” Anemotech to created a recyclable version.
