Kingly honoured International Children’s Day last month with a special event for a kindergarten in Bulgaria.
The sock and apparel manufacturer’s embroidery expert, Nelya Moroz, created sock puppets to welcome the children and teachers at Gianni Rodari in Sofia.
Kingly founder Rob Armour told the children how socks are made and that 20,000 litres of water is needed to cultivate 1kg cotton. He explained that the company turns textile waste into yarn to knit upcycled socks, and that the socks used for the puppets were from defective socks and offcuts from production.
“We do not throw away waste! We reuse it. We take something that is worth nothing and transfer it into something of a higher value! This is called upcycling,” added Rob Armour added. Every child had the chance to learn how to make a caterpillar from odd socks and were also able to watch a video on how a sock is created at Kingly.
The children were shown how a T-shirt is printed using the direct-to-garment (DTG) method. Each child received an apron, a DTG-printed T-shirt and bag, along with the company’s latest book that explains the 101 uses of a sock.
“Kingly aims to continue the initiative of educating kids from kindergartens and schools, as well as their clients, about the importance of turning to sustainable alternatives to the most popular textile products. Our mission is to inspire people when it comes to upcycling and repurposed design. We also want to teach start-ups how to adopt best practices and how to operate sustainably on a larger scale.”
