Black Algae Shorts

Lightweight, breathable, fast drying, and dyed in black algae.

$395.00 $118
Black Algae Shorts
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Size
Size guide

Model is 5ft 11 / 180cm with a 32 inch / 81cm waist, and wears size Medium.

  • Made with Karnak Menoufi from the Nile Delta
  • Garment dyed in black algae dye
  • Dye made from algae waste
Every pair of Black Algae Shorts starts with a world-class base material – a rare cotton called Karnak Menoufi. One of the lightest, softest materials on the planet, Karnak Menoufi is a silk-like cotton that’s only found in the Nile Delta, and only grows in the years when the rain, soil and wind conditions are perfect. We combine this with ultrafine nylon and elastane for durability and stretch, before submerging the finished shorts in a giant bath of the world’s first black algae dye.

Over 5 years of R&D have gone into creating a black algae dye, as each individual particle in the pigment has to be microscopically small – at an average of 1 micron. While most dyes are still petroleum based, the algae we use starts life in huge open-air ponds where it absorbs carbon dioxide and pumps oxygen back out into the atmosphere. The result is a pair of super lightweight, breathable and fast drying shorts, with a naturally faded look created by the garment dyeing process.

Technical Details

Material made in Italy: 64% cotton, 32% polyamide, 4% elastane
Highly breathable
Fast drying
Two way horizontal stretch
Two open side pockets
Two back pockets with button closure
5 belt loops
Button fly
Shorts weigh 255 grams
Material weighs 149g/m2
Machine wash inside out at 30ºC
Constructed in Portugal
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We start with the softest cotton from the Nile Delta

Each pair of Black Algae Shorts starts with a world-class base material – a rare cotton called Karnak Menoufi. One of the lightest, softest materials on the planet, Karnak Menoufi is a silk-like cotton that’s only found in the Nile Delta, and only grows in the years when the rain, soil and wind conditions are perfect.

They’re super lightweight, highly breathable, and come with a beautifully faded look after being dyed in giant baths of black algae.

We turn cotton into a high-performance fabric

While Karnak Menoufi is already extremely soft and robust, we’ve added durability and stretch by combining it with elastane and an ultrafine nylon in Italy. The result is an advanced, lightweight material that feels extremely soft next to your skin. And it’s the exact same high-performance material we use to build our Equator Pants and Shorts for extreme heat.

They’re lightweight, breathable and fast drying

The shorts are super lightweight at 255 grams, which makes them easy to wear or pack on any adventure. The material is highly breathable, which means sweat can escape fast. It dries quickly too, making the shorts as at home in a rainforest as they are in a city.

Constructed with four pockets

You’ll find two open pockets at the front of the shorts. And there are two more pockets at the back of the shorts which each fasten with a bio-resin button.

Buttons made from plants and vegetables

The fly fastens with four buttons made of buffalo imitation bio-resin – a natural, non-toxic and water-based material we’ve produced by combining plant and vegetable waste with a polyester resin used by the aerospace industry.

Garment dyeing gives the shorts a faded patina

While most clothes are dyed with a process called piece dyeing – where huge rolls of fabric are dyed, before being cut and sewn to make clothing – we garment dye every pair of Black Algae Shorts by fully submerging them in the world’s first black algae dye to give them their dark grey colour. Garment dyeing makes the shorts look and feel lived-in from the day you get them, with the colours building up in the stitching and creases while coming out paler at the edges. It’s what gives these shorts their distinctive faded patina.

The algae we use starts life in huge open-air ponds where it grows by feeding on sunlight, carbon dioxide, water and nutrients.

The first clothing dyed with black algae

We’re on a mission to show that black algae dye can be a viable and sustainable alternative to traditional petroleum-based dyes. So over the last few years we've been working with US biomaterials company Living Ink to accelerate the adoption of black algae as a way to colour clothing. After their founders Scott and Steve discovered that an algae cell is almost identical in size to a carbon black pigment, and can create the same colour, they’ve been on a mission to replace carbon black with black algae waste.

Turning algae into dye took 5 years of R&D

To create a black algae dye, each individual particle in the pigment needs to be microscopically small, otherwise the jacket’s fibres won’t absorb them. So Living Ink have spent 5 years in R&D working on how to reduce the size of the black algae particles to an average of 1 micron. This breakthrough creates a sustainable alternative to dyeing clothing using traditional carbon-black based dyes, and with a clear pathway for scaling up.

To create a black algae dye, each individual particle in the pigment needs to be microscopically small – an average of 1 micron.

Our algae starts life in giant ponds

The algae we use starts life in huge open-air ponds where it grows by feeding on sunlight, carbon dioxide, water and nutrients. These ponds contain vast quantities of spirulina algae which absorb carbon dioxide and pump oxygen back out into the atmosphere. While the majority of the algae is used to make natural food colourings, the rest of the algae is harvested and used as the base for black algae dye.

  • Why we want to replace carbon black

    Unless you’ve spent your life on a desert island with no clothes and no possessions, you’ll run into carbon black every day. It’s in the ink in your black pen, your black phone case, and the tyres on your car. Carbon black is the pigment that’s used to make black things black. But we don’t question where it comes from because very few people know it’s even there.

  • Making the colour black hasn’t changed for 100 years

    The way carbon black is made hasn’t really changed for over a century. At mass scale the process begins with a fossil fuel like heavy petroleum which is fed into an industrial furnace and allowed to partially combust. This creates a black powder that looks a bit like soot. And this is carbon black. It’s then used to colour everything from inks, to plastics, to rubber, and you’ll find it everywhere on the planet.

  • Why we’re looking for alternatives to carbon black

    There are lots of problems associated with carbon black. The manufacturing process creates greenhouse gases which are released into the atmosphere. And the heavy petroleum needed to make it comes from places known as oil sands, or tar sands. These are barren areas of our planet that are stripped of all vegetation so that oil can be extracted from the ground. And as ecosystems are eroded more carbon is emitted.

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Size + Fit

The Black Algae Shorts are designed with a regular fit. If you’re on the borderline between two waist sizes, we recommend going for the larger size.

Size XS S M L XL XXL
Fits waist 71 - 76 76 - 81 81 - 86 86 - 91 91 - 96 96 - 101
Outside leg 101 102.5 104 105.5 107 108.5
Size XS S M L XL XXL
Fits waist 28 - 30 30 - 32 32 - 34 34 - 36 36 - 38 38 - 40
Outside leg 39.7 40.3 40.9 41.5 42.1 42.7