Rhea

Rhea’s transparency ensures you’re informed about every aspect of your clothing, from its origins to production. They validate their suppliers’ certifications, including GOTS and RWS for social conditions, and ISO standards for environmental and quality measures. Rhea also maintains direct relationships with their producers, personally visiting sites in Lithuania and Austria to oversee and understand their production processes closely.

Rhea uses only (semi)natural materials in their clothing, the vast majority of which is merino wool. In addition, the brand also mixes Tencel Lyocell with the wool in certain garments, and they also have a collection of cotton shirts.

The merino wool is treated to ensure that the clothes can be machine-washed, and to extend the life of the garment. According to the brand, this process is done without any harmful chemicals or chlorine. The process is said to follow Bluesign, GOTS and OEKO-Tex criteria. The dyes are also free of harmful substances and are OEKO-Tex certified.

In some garments, Rhea combines 40% Tencel Lyocell with 60% merino wool, mainly in the recycled designs. This is because the mechanical recycling of textiles results in shorter fibres, which reduces the quality of the new fabric. Adding Lyocell improves the quality, and you can wear your garment longer. Lyocell is a soft fabric made from wood pulp. Although the raw material is natural, it requires a chemical manufacturing process to turn the pulp into yarn. The Tencel Lyocell brand is produced by the company Lenzing. Lenzing ensured that their production process takes place in a closed loop, with chemicals being recovered all the time. You can read more about the pros and cons of this material in this article.

Finally, the Rhea collection also includes cotton shirts. The cotton used comes from the Thomas Mason brand. Rhea uses deadstock fabrics, production surpluses from the brand, to produce the shirts.

Even for the packaging of their orders, this Dutch brand opts for more sustainable alternatives. The shipping boxes are made of recycled cardboard. In doing so, the brand chooses to minimise as much as possible and omit unnecessary labels or flyers.
 

The garments are potentially recyclable when you discard them, as knitwear is easier to fibre than woven fabrics. Moreover, Rhea very often uses mono-materials such as 100% merino wool or 100% cotton in their designs, which also greatly facilitates the recycling process.

To put more effort into their circularity, Rhea also has their own collection of discarded clothes. You can send in your own garments made of 100% wool, after which Rhea will work with it to recycle it into new fashion. You can find the results of this project in the Rhea Remake recycled collection. In the process, the brand also uses this process to turn their own production waste into new designs.

Rhea supply chain isn’t particularly short.

The Dutch brand sources its wool from Uruguay, with some production steps also occurring there, slightly shortening the supply chain. The final stages of production take place in countries like Lithuania, Austria, and Italy.

For their cotton shirts made from deadstock fabrics, the exact production locations are unclear, but the brand traces these fabrics back to a single supplier. 

Rhea’s website indicates that this cotton originates from Egypt.

Rhea predominantly uses merino wool in its collection. They partner with Nativa to ensure ethical wool sourcing, which guarantees better sheep treatment and mulesing-free practices. Nativa supports ethical wool production by overseeing animal welfare and human working conditions. Their wool processing follows the Responsible Wool Standard (RWS), emphasizing their commitment to ethical and sustainable practices.

Furthermore, Rhea’s designs feature pearl buttons.

Rhea offers a year-round modular collection, with a steady range of designs and some seasonal variations. Over time, they’ve developed a signature style focusing on minimalist, timeless pieces. This approach allows the knitwear to stand out. 

While Rhea has experimented with brighter colours, they now lean towards minimalism and classic elegance, ensuring their garments are versatile and can be styled into various outfits.

Rhea is strongly committed to transparency. The brand works with Nativa to fully map the supply chain of their wool items. This detailed information is displayed using product passports on the product pages and hangtags of the clothes. So you can easily see where each step of the production process takes place, where your garment was made, and where the wool comes from!

In an interview with COSH! Rhea mentioned that they also want to expand this transparency further for the cotton garments in their collection. So soon you will find their own product passport for all designs!

Meanwhile, the brand did share all information about the materials and producers of the shirts with COSH!