The Sak Group was founded over 30 years ago with the inspiration to create timeless pieces of fashion and function. Collaborating with Oceanworks, The Sak Group has become involved in the health and preservations of our oceans. The partnership between The Sak Brand Group and Oceanworks took both organizations to places they could not have gone alone. And now, both parties are reaping the benefits of going beyond their comfort zones and delivering innovative products to the market. The Sak Brand Group began in 1989, creating bags built with a strong focus on uniquely textured fabrications. It has grown to become one of the largest lifestyle accessories companies in the country, with offices in New York City, San Francisco, China, and Indonesia. The Sak is known for its vibrant and colorful bags, which are handwoven throughout Indonesia. Colour is an incredibly powerful aspect of their brand and product offering, so Sak was adamant about maintaining their biggest differentiator by switching from yarns made from virgin material to yarns made from recycled ocean plastics.
The Sak Brand Group designs and manufactures three very distinct brands of lifestyle accessories: Sak, Sakroots and Elliott Lucca. They sell products in more than 4,500 department stores and 850 specialty shops in 24 international markets. The relationship began when The Sak's CEO and founder, Mark Talucci, decided he wanted the company to debut a new vision of sustainability, with ocean plastic at its core. A lifelong surfer who found his inspiration for The Sak while vacationing in Bali in the 1980s, Mark truly cares about reducing ocean pollution and reducing the carbon footprint of his company's products. Currently, The Sak is a proud certified B Corporation member, and also carries Leather Working Group and Forest Stewardship Council certification, and is PETA approved vegan. The Process In support of The Sak's desire to incorporate ocean plastic into its products for the first time, Oceanworks identified and recommended polypropylene derived from recovered fishing gear and nets. To help facilitate The Sak's transition to this material, Oceanworks began by gathering a thorough understanding of The Sak's existing supply chain, and exploring opportunities to work with The Sak's existing yarn manufacturer. This strategy took Oceanworks to Indonesia to hold meetings at the yarn manufacturer's facility, which is where the polypropylene material in the yarn for The Sak is extracted. The Sak's communications team used media resources and support of Oceanworks to craft a compelling narrative about the material source of their bags. The recovered polypropylene that Oceanworks had identified was a genuine source material, as these same nets and gear, when improperly discarded, litter the shores and fishing grounds off the coast of Indonesia, the same country where The Sak's bags are handwoven. Oceanworks is delighted to have partnered with The Sak to bring its sustainable vision to life. Successes like this are only possible when partner organisations are equally enthusiastic and motivated to persevere through any challenge. Oceanworks applauds The Sak for their enthusiasm and thirst for problem solving and congratulates their team on the launch of their first ocean-based product line. One tonne of recycled plastic saves 685 gallons of oil, 30 cubic yards of landfill space, and two tonnes of carbon emissions.
The Sak and Oceanworks teams discovered that extruding recycled polypropylene fishing net into yarn was not easy, which caused several production problems. Oceanworks worked iteratively with The Sak to run small batches of the recycled fishing net material and improve production so that The Sak could ultimately run large volumes of the material with confidence. After 18 months of testing and establishing production supply chains, The Sak was ready for the show. The ReSak collection launched in spring 2020 and was one of Oceanworks' favorite projects. Taking risks is part of the ethos of both companies, making the occasional long road from inspiration to production worthwhile.