Southeast Asia is one of the most biodiverse regions in the world, yet it is also facing an extinction crisis due to habitat loss, economic activity, hunting, and illegal wildlife trade. Despite growing awareness of environmental issues, many struggle to translate this concern into daily action—often due to the friction between sustainability and convenience in urban Singapore. The challenge was not to just convince people to care, but to create solutions that made sustainable actions feel seamless and relevant within their lifestyles.

Our original brief came from Mandai, a leading global zoological organisation in Singapore. The brief was a fully non-commercial initiative aimed at driving awareness for sustainability among Gen Z and millennial audiences. For Mandai, the secondary objective of this campaign was also to reposition itself from being perceived solely as a zoo attraction to a biodiversity brand—one that not only protects wildlife but also inspires people to take action for the environment. Research data showed that while Mandai’s brand awareness was high, understanding of their conservation efforts remained low.

Good Threads is a unique collection of performance wear that is designed for the environmental challenges of city living, rather than the conditions of outdoor terrains. The design process began with questioning the function of clothing and fashion – does a shirt have to be just a shirt? Can it do more than just look good? While performance wear exists for mountains, deserts, rivers and forests, we don’t have performance wear designed for the urban jungle – the one environment more than half of the world’s population inhabit.

In designing for action, we wanted to go above and beyond creating eco-sourced clothes, to kickstart behavioural change. The collection empowers wearers to make more sustainable choices, with functions that prepare them for common everyday situations that challenge planet-friendly behaviour. Each piece in the Good Threads collection is designed to tackle a specific challenge in everyday life: eating sustainably, shopping sustainably, recycling consistently, and minimising consumption. With this, we hoped to create new possibilities for what clothes can do: not just change the way you look, but change the way you act.

Insight:
Our research showed that Mandai’s target audience of Gen Z and millennials were already good at incorporating sustainable choices into their lives, but only in ways that were easy, desirable, and relevant. For example, wearing thrifted, vintage, and secondhand clothing is a popular choice for Gen Z and millennials who are looking for ways to define themselves with fashion choices outside of mainstream high-street or fast fashion brands.

Strategy:
Our insights revealed that fashion presented an opportunity to merge self-expression with purpose, making sustainable habits feel natural and aspirational for our target audience, rather than burdensome. Our strategy was to tap into the audience’s drive towards unique thrifted fashion apparel that would give them a sense of individuality and self-expression by creating one-of-a-kind clothing upcycled from salvaged materials.

In addition to that, we saw further opportunity to use fashion as a tool for change, by designing clothes that help remove the daily friction of making sustainable choices in a world designed for convenience. Every piece in the Good Threads collection was designed with built-in functionality to encourage better habits: from the Takeaway Shirt’s multi-pocket pantry to the Trashy Pants’ spontaneous recycling organiser. These functions were purposefully integrated as intentional reminders to make sustainable choices while wearing.

The overall tone and presentation of the collection was designed to be easy, warm, and inviting—something people want to engage with rather than feel obligated to. This meant focusing on practical solutions that integrate seamlessly into daily life, proving that small innovations can have a big impact. After all, innovation isn’t always about complex technology or radical reinvention—it can be as simple as rethinking what’s already within reach. With Good Threads, sustainability doesn’t have to be a distant ideal, but a simple part of getting dressed and living in the city.

The Good Threads collection consists of four pieces: The Tote Shorts, The Takeaway Shirt, The Bucket-Bag Hat, and The Trashy Pants. Each unique style in the limited production run was handcrafted from upcycled materials with Singapore designer Hakim Samat (unusualfelines). To prolong the lifespan of material resources, each garment is made from 100% locally sourced salvaged fabrics, which were sourced from local thrift and secondhand stores’ excess stock. To further minimise waste, even the smallest details from buttons to clasps are made from 100% post-consumer plastic, such as milk cartons and shampoo bottles, produced in collaboration with community-based recycling studio Plastify.

The collection included 4 styles:

1. THE TOTE SHORTS: A wearable alternative to plastic bags featuring a forget-proof detachable tote made from lightweight salvaged fabrics. Designed so wearers never forget their reusable bag at home, leaving them to conquer even the most last-minute groceries with ease.

2. THE TAKEAWAY SHIRT: A lazy-resistant pantry-in-a-shirt designed to help people on-the-go stay away from single-use takeaway containers. Instead, the shirt comes with multi-pockets making it easy to store and transport reusable containers, bottle, utensils, so they can more easily break the single-use habit.

3. THE BUCKET-BAG HAT: Combines the functions of multiple garments in one. An innovative easy-convert design transforms the bucket hat into a practical bucket bag with a simple flip, helping wearers keep their cool, and have a handy bag for whenever they need.

4. THE TRASHY PANTS: These pants are trashy so the world doesn’t have to be. Made to assist recycling efforts on-the-go, a dual-pocket organiser helps store and sort recyclables and reusables, whenever there is no recycling bins around. A drawstring anti-litter pouch also helps store trash, so wearers can easily pick up any litter spotted.

For a very limited run of only 200 unique pieces, we were able to salvage 108kg and 1,158 pieces of discarded clothing that would otherwise have been turned to waste. Within 24 hours of the launch, we sold out of 90% of the first drop and achieved $330,000 worth of earned PR value. The Good Threads campaign has received global coverage including Forbes saying the collection “revolutionizes the urban wardrobe.” In addition, the collection was honoured with Fast Company’s Innovation by Design Award 2024, which recognizes groundbreaking design projects shaping a better world with over 2,000 applications submitted.

Ultimately, the positive impact that we had on consumers were also very telling:
“I do buy takeaway food/drink quite often, so the takeaway shirt encourages me to bring reusable cups/lunchboxes without it feeling like a hassle.”
“Knowing that the bag-hat I bought is made from reusable materials reminds me more of how I should be more conscious and put in more effort to be more sustainable. The bucket bag-hat definitely makes it more convenient for me when buying small items - i no longer have to buy a plastic bag and can turn my hat into a bag whenever i need one!”
“I own a spork and use a foldable tote for quick trips to the shops but if I don’t carry a larger day bag, I tend to either forget or leave them behind. With the dedicated compartments as well as the detachable tote from the Tote Shorts, I don’t have that excuse. It definitely encourages me to actually use these items more.”