A longtime Portland sneaker exec's new plant-based Streetwear brand aims to take sustainability to a higher standard.
Eric Liedtke, a former Adidas brand president, announced his new company Unless Collective last year. The company, with a valuation of $30 million, began with a founding team of executives from Quicksilver, R/GA and Adidas, making it one of the most promising apparel startups in recent Portland history.
Liedtke’s history with Adidas goes back nearly 30 years. He became a senior vice president of sport brand marketing in 2006 and eventually brand president in 2014. He worked closely with creators like Kanye West and his Yeezy line while at Adidas, but left in 2019 to create Unless because of his passion for sustainability.
“(Being brand president) led me into a deep rabbit hole where it started with (environmental nonprofit) Parley for the Oceans and understanding the problem with petrochemicals and fashion and the waste they leave behind,” Liedtke said. “And once you go down that rabbit hole, it's very hard to unhear and unsee (that).”
Liedtke soon realized it was nearly impossible to effect real change with the position he was in, he said, and thus began Unless. The entire product line — which consists of cotton T-shirts, sweatshirts, shorts and woven jackets — is biodegradable.
At Unless’ Northwest Portland showroom, a decomposing sweatshirt sits in a pile of dirt in a clear glass table, giving people a visual representation of the process. Additionally, all of its cotton products are produced in America, meaning lower emissions are produced by shipping.
Other so-called sustainable products and brands aren’t as sustainable as they could be, Liedtke said. A shirt can say it is 100% cotton, he said, but still use petroleum-based printing, dyes, stitching and more. Unless’ products are a part of what Liedtke hopes becomes a new age of fashion, where every part of a product can be remade or repurposed at the end of its life cycle.
“Ultimately we feel like we're piloting what we're calling regenerative fashion, which is a product that goes away that can grow fresh feedstock at the end of life,” Liedtke said. “And that, to me, is really exciting.”
Cotton products are notorious for using extensive amounts of water in production, which is another major sustainability concern in the fashion industry. Liedtke said this is something Unless takes into account, but adds that aiming for perfection should not get in the way of progress.
“Everything is in balances. The perfect state may not exist, especially when you get into the world of sustainability,” Liedtke said.
Recently, Unless opened a pop-up at Union Way in downtown Portland to get its products in front of more people.
Unless now is aggressively pushing for a sustainable footwear line, Liedtke said. It is incredibly difficult to make a sustainable shoe, he said, given that shoes use dozens of different materials, but the process of creating it has been satisfying.
“We're in this for creating generational change, and so we want to pick the hardest things to innovate against to be a lighthouse for others to follow,” Liedtke said.
Unless is in the product sampling phase right now for its footwear line, he said, and hopes to have more announcements about the line near the end of 2022 and beginning of 2023.
