Parley for the Oceans launches eyewear with M.I.A.

By

Jennifer Braun

Published
Jun 9, 2021

Parley for the Oceans unveiled on Tuesday a new luxury eyewear collection created from marine plastic debris and reclaimed fishing nets in collaboration with Sri Lanka born, UK-based artist Maya Arulpragasam, who performs as M.I.A.

The Clean Waves range has a dual mission to serve as a creative fundraising platform and uses 100 percent of net proceeds from its sales to support the expansion of Parley’s remote island cleanups, education and infrastructure projects.

The luxury brand invites select artists, creatives and activists to design innovative products made from Parley Ocean Plastic. Clean Waves also aims to be a truly circular brand by inviting consumers to trade their sunglasses in at the end of life for recycling in exchange of a discount.

The collaborative collection launches with a core ‘Archetype’ model in 14 variations, as well as with an exclusive capsule collection of modular sunglasses. The capsule will be promoted through a series of images and a video featuring M.I.A. captured by photographers Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin. 

“Nature is everything. It’s your physical body, your mental state; it’s our oceans, land, air – everything is connected. If you have a good understanding of all these things, then we are in balance. And I think issues like overpopulation, overfishing, sea piracy, poverty, plastic pollution are all symptoms of a system that is broken,” said Arulpragasam. 

The collection is available exclusively online at cleanwaves.com, at Selfridges in London and in select Dover Street Market locations globally.

“Clean Waves is a new idea of a luxury brand, a creative fundraising platform where artists, designers, activists and material scientists unleash their skills to drive the Material Revolution alongside the protection of islands and oceans,” said Cyrill Gutsch, founder and CEO of Parley for the Oceans

“Every Clean Waves collection is designed to provoke a future of creativity, collaboration and eco-innovation — with the goal of creating a world where humans live in peace with the ecosystems of nature.”