Sustainable Lingerie, Reimagined: The Case for Circular Intimates
CFC Member Spotlight: Micki Weiner of Petal + Ash
Author and interviewer: Stella Hertantyo
Micki Weiner is the founder of Petal + Ash, a circular lingerie brand currently in development, with a mission to empower women through comfortable lingerie, made from materials safe for the most intimate parts of their bodies. She is also the Impact Manager for The CSO Shop, helping consumer brands, cultural influencers, and forward-thinking organizations unlock the power of strategic sustainability and translate it into a driver of value and growth.
With a Masters in Sustainability Management from Columbia University and design certificates from the Fashion Institute of Technology, Micki brings expertise in circularity, materials impact, and creative problem-solving to the intersection of climate and culture.
I interviewed Micki in the Conscious Fashion Collective Membership as part of our Member Spotlight interview series.
Below are some of the highlights from the conversation, including:
Why the lingerie industry needs to take sustainability into account,
What does a circular business model mean for a lingerie brand,
And the challenges of being a solo female founder in the sustainable fashion space.
What was the moment you knew you needed to start your brand, Petal + Ash?
’ve always loved lingerie. I first started exploring textiles and naturally dyeing them as a hobby. One day, I decided to take some silks that I had dyed and sew them into a bra. That was my light bulb moment.
I took this idea to my mom, who used to be a buyer, because I wasn’t well-versed in the intimate apparel industry, back then. My mom told me it was a great idea, but that the intimate apparel industry was a hard category to break into.
Instead of taking her advice, I decided to give it my best shot. Of course later on, I realized that she did know what she was talking about and that it was a challenging category.
Up until the pandemic hit, my career was in the performing arts. Then the industry went dark and I had a lot of time on my hands. I started to do these deep dives into materials and the lingerie industry. I also took a few courses through The Sustainable Angle. This is when I began to see a white space in the market for something that wasn’t just sustainably made, but that was also aesthetically driven and beautiful. This synergy felt like something the industry was missing.
My Masters Degree was an opportunity to validate my idea. I got to understand sustainability from a holistic perspective, instead of just diving into this one industry. As I kept learning more and moving forward, I kept having these moments of validation that convinced me that there was space for my little seed of an idea in the marketplace.
In your brand development market research, what was your most interesting finding?
The dissatisfaction was what shocked me the most. We did some market research and surveys and found that 65% of women who responded were dissatisfied with market offerings.
This was surprising to me, because it feels as though lingerie is an oversaturated market. There’s so much on offer depending on your needs and taste. When I thought about what this finding was telling me, it was that there’s a lack of education about what lingerie is best for you. Many women still don’t know their accurate breast size or what style is best for them.
Petal + Ash is never going to be able to be everything for every woman. But we’re definitely building in this educational component so that when women come to us, they can feel supported in making an educated decision.
What are the key sustainability implications of the lingerie industry that you think more people should be aware of?
Firstly, I think the reason that lingerie isn’t discussed in the sustainability space more is because it’s also performance-based, which makes it a difficult category.
Yes, we used to make bras and panties before we had elastane, but now that we do have it there are a lot of benefits from a comfort and performance perspective. This has been an interesting challenge for me: figuring out how we can still deliver comfort and performance without these unsustainable materials.
Ultimately the lingerie industry is just a category within the larger apparel industry. So it faces the same issues that the apparel industry at large deals with. This includes issues such as overproduction, greenhouse gas emissions, labor rights, and water effluent. Lingerie is a microcosm.
There are a few issues specific to lingerie. In the lingerie industry, a lot of petroleum-based fabrics are used — elastane, spandex, power mesh, and lace. Yet, some of the beauty in traditional lingerie comes from those materials. Plus, depending on your needs in a bra, you might need some of those materials.
This is why I don’t want to be on my soapbox and say that we need to do away with those materials when we don’t yet have a step in — and I recognize that different women need different solutions. But given the climate crisis we’re facing, I do think we need to grapple with how to shift away from petroleum-based fabrics.
The other element is looking at what fabrics are the best for garments that we’re putting on the most intimate parts of our body. Synthetic materials shed microplastics and they often use highly toxic dyes.
In my work, I always balance looking at the planetary issues we’re facing, while figuring out how we can make lingerie better for women’s bodies. I want to make lingerie that a woman can put on the most intimate parts of her body, and feel confident in while knowing that the dyes won’t harm her and microplastics won’t shed.
How did you determine what materials are safe for our bodies and the planet?
Early on, I knew I wanted to create something circular, because I felt that there aren’t good end-of-life solutions for undergarments.
Regardless of the issues with the secondhand market, it’s a helpful way to extend the lifespan of clothing. But you're not necessarily sending a stretched-out bra, or your old panties, to the secondhand market. So I wanted to explore how these garments could safely return to nature.
First I turned to looking at what materials are natural or bio-based. It was a challenge to find materials that met those criteria, but also worked for the performance needs of intimates.
Then we began looking at ways that we could return to old techniques of bra making from before we had elastane in fabrics. It was this balance of honoring modern-day expectations of comfort, looking at past construction techniques, and researching new innovative fabrics.
The materials became both a constraint and a creative opportunity. We began exploring how thoughtful design could give us our desired outcome. We explored whether there are materials that are natural or bio-based, that are beautiful and give you that silk-like feel so that you are getting that premium luxury lingerie feel from the material itself.
That’s when we found our hero fabric, which is a bio-based SeaCell fabric. It’s made in Iceland from seaweed that has been sustainably harvested and processed into fabric by combining it with tree pulp.
I have fallen in love with this fabric. It feels lovely and there’s no elastane in it. We do have elastic in the garment in the band, so you’ll still get that stretch and recovery from the elastic. But the elastic is made of organic cotton and natural rubber.
Can you tell us more about your circular business model and what this means in practice in the lingerie world?
Something that I'm proud of is that we've built a localized supply chain to where the material comes from in Europe. We’re working with a fabric that doesn’t come from the US, so I wanted to figure out how to best minimize our impact.
Then the goal is that when these garments are at their end of life, and you’ve worn them out, you can cut them up and put them in your compost or your backyard — and they will naturally degrade.
We currently have a compost test running with the nature preserve in upstate New York. A few weeks ago I got my first report back that showed exactly how the material is degrading over time.
At Petal + Ash, we believe that circularity is a system that everybody needs to participate in. So part of our work is figuring out how we can empower our customers to partake in this system of circularity.
As someone living in New York City, I also recognize that not everyone has a backyard. We hope that in places where you don't, we can guide you toward community gardens or other organizations that are willing to take textiles nearby. You can cut up your bra and panties and send it on its way.
What is the biggest challenge you have faced being a solo female founder in the sustainable fashion space?
There are always a million decisions to make and many of those decisions feel scary when it’s just you. It’s easy to get in your head and then get decision paralysis.
I have always had a strong vision. I felt this pressure to bring this perfect vision to market — anything less would be a failure. Having come from a dance and performance background, there's a lot of perfectionism in that space. Being a solo female founder has also been my journey of letting go of that.
The biggest thing I've learned is that you have to keep moving forward. You need to make the best decision you can make at that moment in time, with the best information you have. If you want to keep moving forward so that you can bring your vision to market, you have to start somewhere.
You have to be willing to pivot when you're presented with information that doesn't necessarily meet perfection for you. You have to be willing to adapt.
Plus when you don’t know the answers, you can surround yourself with people that do. I knew that my design skills only went so far. Since we're working with materials that are so specific and outside the norm, I knew I needed to find someone top of their game in technical design, but also understood what I was doing in the sustainability space. You need to find the right people and the right manufacturing partners along your journey and you’re bound to feel less alone.
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