This article is a collaboration between Irys Placida Kornbluth, co-founder of Everywhere Apparel, and Lauren Gibbs, Founder of Root for Hemp.
Legal cannabis is awash in merch. Swag is everywhere, and that includes in the trash. Many brands start from a good place and want to choose the right products, but when they look at the cost of hemp, they go back to the same old ways.
Yes, hemp can be more expensive, especially hemp clothes. That means hemp is not always a good fit for merch choice, but you can still choose something sustainable. It is ok to be friends with organic cotton and organic bamboo, but the reality is that both of those still require a lot of water to grow and process. Sometimes the best choice isn’t farming something new, but recycling waste that already exists on this Earth.
That is why we chose to make our Free the Plant hoodies with 100% domestically recycled cotton hoodies from Everywhere Apparel. In this edition of the Stakeholder Series, we are excited to introduce you to Everywhere cofounder, Irys Placida Kornbluth.
Introducing Everywhere Apparel
Everywhere is a fully circular apparel company that makes clothing from 100% recycled waste textile fibers. We hold a GRS (Global Recycled Standard) certification that traces recycled materials throughout our supply chain.
Our recycling process is mechanical - textile waste scraps are shredded into fine fiber and respun into yarn, which is then knit, cut, and sewn into apparel. Our CirCot™ fabric—a proprietary 100% recycled cotton—undergoes a unique process of color sorting and recycling to eliminate the need for dyeing. This technique conserves water and eliminates harmful chemicals, allowing us to repurpose post-industrial and post-consumer cotton into new yarn with minimal resource input. Each garment saves up to 800 gallons of water from avoiding growing virgin fibers, and has a fraction of the carbon emissions.
Everywhere offers low MOQs (minimum order quantities) and plant based print options to help any brand get started with sustainable merch. The company also offers recycling services. These are easily accessible for the consumer via a QR code on each shirt they can scan to return the shirt to Everywhere to be recycled. We also offer bulk recycling services to brands to ensure that products and IP don’t end up in a landfill.
Merch on a Mission
At Root for Hemp we decided to hand tie dye all of our Everywhere hoodies to be completely individual and fashionable. When your merch has some style, it is more likely to be treasured than discarded. Instead of merch for merch sake, it is Merch on a Mission.
Artist Collab Rooted in Cannabis Culture
Just because something isn’t made of hemp, doesn't mean it has to be disconnected from the cause or the culture. When looking at artist collabs, staying connected to the culture is top of mind at Root for Hemp. The culture of Northern California is integral to the modern cannabis movement. We are excited to introduce to you to the legendary Wobbly Mandalas, who is self described as Humboldt County's tie dyer. Affectionately known as a bearded garden gnome who resides in the hills in the Emerald Triangle with his VW van and farm-conditioned french bulldog, Queso, where he is networked with a community of artists with intimate ties to the plant. Wobbly originals are done exclusively by custom orders in singular pieces of art or small batch collections hand tied and hand dyed in his home studio.
We are thrilled to bring you 13 individually unique hoodies with our rallying cry–Free the Plant - Free the People - De-Schedule it. In the time of the rescheduling hearings, and on the brink of the hemp ban cliff, this message is as important as ever.
Because no one should be in prison for a plant, a portion of the sales from every hoodie sold will be donated to the good folks at Last Prisoner Project, who are doing the important work of freeing cannabis prisoners.
Shop Everywhere Apparel at Root for Hemp
Shop Wobbly Mandalas x Free the Plant
Shop Free the Plant - Indigo Classic
About Irys Placida Kornbluth
Irys Kornbluth is co-founder and Chief Commercial Officer of Everywhere, a materials and software company combining AI-powered tools with hands-on expertise in materials development and circular manufacturing. Everywhere’s platform is designed to help companies accelerate research and development, connect supply-chain operations, and turn sustainability goals into practical action. Kornbluth brings an operator’s perspective to this work having built global partnerships and programs with companies like Coach, Rivian, and Amazon. A Stanford-educated entrepreneur with more than a decade of experience building businesses, she connects a background in textiles and design with a focus on making circular production commercially practical.
