PHILOSOPHY Pristine

Pristine is a Japanese organic cotton brand created by Avanti,
which started using organic cotton in its products in 1990.
At that time, organic cotton was not yet widely known or understood in Japan. Against this challenging backdrop, Avanti began to import organically produced raw cotton, which it uses to make fabrics for its carefully planned products.

Pristine was born as the “child” of Avanti in 1996.

The word pristine means
－ something that is unspoiled or maintained in its original condition. －
As a brand, Pristine incorporates these hopes and ideas.
At the heart of Pristine lies the concept of bringing comfort into everyday life.

Pristine’s items use no chemical dyes to add color to the design.
While it might seem foolish, even reckless, to make textile products without any coloring other than the natural colors of the raw materials, we remain committed to this endeavor. We seek out the freedom within this constraint to research and re-weave the skills of Japanese craftsmanship and passion.
By restricting ourselves only to the natural colors of our textiles, we can develop materials and products in far more profound ways.

As a brand, Pristine presents a sustainable lifestyle model that is compatible with people’s everyday lives.

Ladies’ wear
Underwear
Accessories
Bedding
Bathroom items
Baby wear
Men’s wear

The brand’s line of organic cotton lifestyle items is available across seven categories.
In 2018, I stayed with nomads in Mongolia some 1,500 kilometers from Ulaanbaatar for two nights and three days. During my travels there, I was shocked by the various kinds of plastic bottles and bags I could see blowing in the wind across the steppes. Witnessing this disparity between the natural beauty of the landscape and this manmade trash, I was filled with a desire to do something about this problem.
I have felt this not only overseas, but also in Japan.
Paying a visit to Ishigaki, an island in the far south, the stunningly blue sea shimmered bright with the rays of the sun. But when I looked over to the beach, I was astounded by what I saw: plastic bottles, polystyrene foam, and fishing gear, almost all washed up on the beach from elsewhere and so numerous that there was almost nowhere to step.
Even here in Ishigaki, the problem of environmental pollution had become severe.

The United Nations has set the Sustainable Development Goals for 2030, one of which includes combating the growing problem of plastics in the oceans.
It is now abundantly clear that clothing with synthetic fibers leads to microplastics when washed, which are then released into our rivers and seas.
The fashion industry is said to be the world’s second largest polluter after the oil and gas industries. The planet on which we live is being destroyed by the fashion industry.
This is a fact that I, who aspired to be a fashion designer since childhood and was able to accomplish that dream of working professionally in the industry, find hard to bear.

For 22 years, Pristine has continued to use organic cotton in the hope of contributing to a more sustainable lifestyle that can leave behind a livable planet for the children of the future.
In 2019, we will relaunch Pristine’s Ubugi babywear line.
We have also started the Pristine Baby Project to make clothing for newborn infants in ways that look far ahead to life in the 22nd century.

Child labor is commonplace at cotton fields in India, depriving children of their rights. In a field sprinkled with agricultural chemicals, young girls worked under a blazing sun from morning until night. When asked their ages, all the girls replied: “Maybe 13.” They each had the same answer.
They didn’t even know their own birthdays. We want such children to go to school. We want them to laugh and play with their friends. These are the feelings that motivate NGO ACE, an organization striving to eliminate child labor. Avanti endorses ACE’s activities and has offered them support since 2008. Avanti also continues to buys cotton from organic cotton suppliers in India.。

The relaunched babywear uses this Indian organic cotton.
We have developed a cloth material from the yarn that fuses two antithetical ideas: a texture gentle like the amniotic fluid that cushions a baby in the womb and a strength for mothers that does not wear down even after multiple washes.
Comprising an internal team of raw material and product planners, the project developers aimed to attain the ultimate in functionality from the raw cotton, yarn, and cloth. After a process of trial and error lasting nearly two years, we could finally achieve the results we wanted. We hope that parents will gain joy from our new infant clothing.

In the same way that we cannot bring happiness to everyone around the world straightaway, we cannot change the environment overnight. Nonetheless, we have pursued a steady course toward this goal and will continue to do so in the future.

WHAT WE CAN DO FOR THE FUTURE

That one item in your hand is connected to the rest of the world.
While probably nothing really changed when you acquired it,
we believe that knowing what took place until that item could arrive in your hand and then making your selection based on that awareness will, slowly yet surely, lead to a better future.
Pristine aspires to be a brand cherished and valuable to everyone’s daily lives.

Hideko Okumori
President
Avanti Co., Ltd.