Groundbreaking Natural Indigo Innovation From Stony Creek Colors At The Albini Group Receives Award Recognition During Milan Fashion Week
MILAN, ITALY - Stony Creek Colors is proud to have been awarded The Groundbreaker Award by the Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana (The National Chamber of Italian Fashion) at the 2022 Sustainable Fashion Awards alongside supply chain partner, The Albini Group, for innovation projects: Grounded Indigo and Biofusion®.
The collaboration testifies to Stony Creek Colors’ and Albini’s ongoing commitment to an increasingly sustainable fashion industry and is the emblem of their promise to the planet and nature.
Grounded Indigo is an innovative sustainable coloring project, developed by ALBINI_next and made possible with the high-purity, natural indigo from Stony Creek Colors.
Stony Creek Colors produces the world’s only 100% BioPreferred™ indigo, certified by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) (a 100% score indicates that after being subject to radiocarbon dating, the product is proven not to contain any synthetic adulterants).
ALBINI_next is the Albini Group innovation hub driving change in the textile world, based on the evolution of know-how and industrial partnerships to achieve new challenging goals in creativity, materials and applied technologies.
The natural dye used in the project has the same performance capabilities of synthetic indigo but is derived from Indigofera suffruticosa plants, grown in partnership with US-farmers in Tennessee and Florida and cultivated through Stony Creek Colors’ in-house seed genetics and agronomy program and proprietary extraction processes.
Through research, testing and experimentation, Stony Creek Colors and ALBINI_next industrialized the correct recipe to be able to apply Stony Creek Colors’ natural indigo directly on the yarn, giving life to a palette of sustainable colors that enables brands to replace synthetic, petroleum-based indigo in their products.
Grounded Indigo is now used by the Albini Group to dye its Biofusion® cotton yarns.
“The fashion supply chain is incredibly interwoven and collaboration is critical for innovation to occur at the pace needed to address environmental crises of today,” says Sarah Bellos, CEO of Stony Creek Colors. “Starting from research with Albini_Next on a repeatable yarn dye process, the exquisite collection of plant-based indigo from Stony Creek Colors and traceable cotton fabrics proves brands do not need to sacrifice luxury or beauty while implementing renewable, climate positive solutions.”
“A 360 ° project, which testifies to how innovation cannot be separated from sustainability and must be an ally of it" - says Stefano Albini, President of Albini. - "Our company has a clear vision on the path that for more than ten years has been concretely implemented in production strategies and projects aimed at creating a new social and environmental awareness, and which lead the company to be a true pioneer of sustainable development".
The Groundbreaker Award is aimed at companies that are committed to the search for innovative solutions to manage the critical issues of the fashion industry in a sustainable manner.
The award honors those who have distinguished themselves in applying these solutions on a large scale, creating a positive social and environmental impact.
Particular attention was paid to innovations focused on natural or bio-based solutions to replace conventional technologies that can damage the earth and deplete natural resources.
The Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana (CNMI) Sustainable Fashion Awards ceremony took place on Sunday 25 September 2022 at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, in collaboration with the United Nations Ethical Fashion Initiative and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.
Today more than ever, the Chamber of Fashion feels the responsibility to play its role in an institutional manner and there is no higher institution than that of the United Nations to implement and promote sustainability in its broadest sense
Stony Creek Colors
Stony Creek Colors is a natural indigo dye manufacturer based in Tennessee, USA.
Since the company’s inception in 2012, they have developed proprietary seed genetics and extraction processes as well as strategic farm partnerships to provide brand customers with a fully transparent supply chain for high performing plant-derived dyes, from seed, to farms, to factory.
Albini Group
Founded in 1876 in Albino (Bergamo) Italy, Albini Group has always been a family business and today, now in its 146th year of activity, it is led by the fifth generation of the family represented by Fabio, Andrea and Stefano Albini.
Albini Group now has seven factories (four of which in Italy) and is the largest European
producer of shirt fabrics.
