design

Apart from the use of durable materials, we have opted for a very robust construction. In fact our Kaiola hat is so well sewed together, that the effort to take it apart at the end of its lifecycle in order to recycle its components, would be counterproductive. We have explored using a special thread that decomposes if put in the microwave, so that dissembling would be easy, but the performance of the hat suffers.

We encourage you to “Share the Shade” and maximise the life span of our product. This is our request: “Share the Shade: at Kaiola we like to care for our planet and our fellow surfers. So if the love story between us is over, please don’t throw me away, but leave me with a local ripper on your next surf trip”. Right now, we cannot recycle the product, so it is very important to maximise its use and the world needs more acts of kindness and sharing. Be that person!

Chemical sun block is not only harmful to our skin, but also to ocean life. There are some good organic sun block options out there, but with our Kaiola hat you will need less of it and the shade from our hat never needs to be reapplied.

With our “Water to Land” concept, our hat doubles as a technical surf hat in the water as well as a normal lifestyle hat. We are promoting quality over quantity.

We are huge fans of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, the leader in circular economy design helping to replace the traditional harmful linear systems. We tried and tested cutting edge sustainable product design methods to try to make our Kaiola hats circular, but at this stage we had to prioritise ‘durability’ and ‘long lasting’ over circular. We’re looking forward to keep experimenting with this!