It all started with music.

Stanford graduates Irys Kornbluth, Maxwell Citron and Nick Benavides were running their own indie record label but were consistently underwhelmed by the merch options available. “We couldn’t find shirts that were cool for the artists because nothing was totally excellent from a sustainability story,” Citron recalls. “So, we did what a bunch of Stanford people would do. We went all the way to the base and came up with our own yarns and processes and finishes and just created a patent pending T-shirt for us.”

That innovation helped them launch venture-backed Everywhere Apparel (asi/53059) in 2019. The supplier developed a proprietary process to tweak existing textile equipment to handle 100% mechanically recycled GRS-certified cotton fibers. Its so-called “CirCot” fabric uses no water in the fiber production, nor dyes, bleaches or other chemicals. Because it eschews polyester and synthetics, the apparel also generates no microplastic pollution. According to an impact calculator on its website, just one Everywhere T-shirt saves 809 gallons of water, prevents the release of 1.9 pounds of atmospheric carbon and reduces landfill waste by 0.6 pounds, compared to a conventional cotton shirt.

Another boon? The company has streamlined operations, keeping its knit, cut and sew processes entirely in Los Angeles, helping to cut supply chain emissions (as well as helping it stay nimble amid ongoing tariff turbulence).

One of the biggest challenges was myth busting the perceived limitations of recycled cotton, Kornbluth says. “Five years ago, most manufacturers didn’t think it was possible to create premium, 100% recycled cotton,” she adds. “In fact, it is possible, and we’re making thousands of pounds of this material on a regular basis.”

Everywhere Apparel is all about kick-starting the circular economy and closing the loop by turning postindustrial (and postconsumer) waste into something new – and the supplier has plenty of material to work with, since only about 15% of textiles are reused or recycled, according to the National Institute of Standards and Technology. To boost that percentage, Everywhere includes a QR-activated recycling trigger on all its products and can also facilitate large-scale recycling services for clients. “Managing the end of life of a product is going above and beyond the linear story we’ve been telling in our supply chains for decades,” Kornbluth adds.

The company’s three founders each bring a unique skill set to the table: Kornbluth, a former competitive classical pianist who’s performed at Carnegie Hall, worked in “artisan-driven fashion” and at e-commerce platform Zazzle before launching Everywhere. Benavides, who studied philosophy and religion at Stanford, counts being one of the founders of commission-free stock-trading app Robinhood on his resume. And Citron is a self-described “nutty inventor” who’s dabbled in everything from blacksmithing to Japanese carpentry. “We’re total outsiders to the commodity apparel industry,” Citron says.

But that outsider perspective has resonated with clients – especially high-profile music acts like Chappell Roan, Wilco and Dead & Co. Last year, rock band Paramore was left with a significant amount of unsold merch after touring with Taylor Swift. Instead of letting it go to waste, Everywhere helped them process more than 15 pallets of excess merch, which it then transformed into new items for the band’s webstore. (It’s a model that also works for uniform programs, Kornbluth notes, with Everywhere taking employees’ old uniforms and recycling them to help create a fresh set of corporate gear.)

“Most manufacturers didn’t think it was possible to create premium, 100% recycled cotton. In fact, it is possible, and we’re making thousands of pounds of this material on a regular basis.”Irys Kornbluth, Everywhere Apparel (asi/53059)

Sustainability-minded promo distributors laud Everywhere’s creative problem-solving and measurable results. Global marketing execution company adm Group, which acquired Lapine (asi/249352) in 2022, collaborated with Everywhere to help an alcohol brand switch from a virgin poly-cotton blend T-shirt to a premium recycled cotton tee. “It wasn’t just a materials swap,” says Ali Pellegrino, senior sustainability manager at adm. “It was a meaningful brand decision that got internal recognition for being both strategic and on-message. Everywhere made it so easy to tell that story clearly and confidently, the client didn’t blink at the slightly higher price point.”

Everywhere founders see apparel as “an obvious beachhead market” for the circular economy, but their vision goes far beyond the blank. “We want to change the whole world,” Benavides told Inc. last year.

The supplier’s work on recycled fiber “opens up a whole pathway to doing really deep innovative work in material science,” Citron says. Everywhere created a patented BioBatch, a biodegradable plastic masterbatch additive, that it expects to impact industries that include carpeting and flooring. Plus, Citron says, the company is exploring sustainable ways of treating textile and agricultural waste byproducts and expects to “have a bunch of new patents by the end of the year.”

At the same time, the company has no plans to abandon apparel, and, in fact, has been looking for more vertically integrated partners to share its textile-to-textile technology. “If we can teach a huge company how to do this at scale, this is the lowest-cost way to make apparel for human beings,” Citron says. “If we threw the right weight around this, it would transform the industry.”