Why Arvin?

Hey everyone,

Dustin here. I’m the Managing Director and Co-Founder for Arvin. It’s good to meet you. I get asked a lot about why people should care about Arvin — it’s easy not to care about socks and underwear. And we get that — we take for granted how things get made, where they come from, and how they impact the world around us. So, a few words to answer the burning question: why Arvin?

The word sustainable gets thrown around a lot. Overused and almost always misused, it's lost most of its meaning. We buy things because they're labelled as "sustainable," but most of us don't understand what that means, why it matters, and when it’s genuine.

We created Arvin with one mission in mind. Make killer products, lessen the impact of the apparel industry, and bring back some real meaning to the word sustainable.

The facts behind the apparel business aren’t great. The textile industry is the second largest polluter in the world — right smack behind oil and gas. Think about that for a second: pollution via socks and underwear follows fossil fuels in terms of impact. That’s brutal.

When it came to Arvin, we needed to find a way to create apparel essentials in the lowest impact way possible. We started with the basics, the things we wear everyday — socks and underwear, the #firstonlastoff items.

The basics matter, and they add up. The socks you're wearing are probably cotton. Depending on the exact fabric makeup of those socks, they require anywhere from 50 to over 150 gallons of water per pair to produce. There’s no way around it: that’s insane.

Our socks are different. Arvin socks and underwear require zero gallons of water.

Unlike other sustainably made goods out there, Arvin socks and underwear don’t cost twice as much as their water guzzling equivalents. Basics by Arvin are the same price — if not cheaper — than their unsustainable equivalents.

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again — we’re starting small. Right now, 100s of people wear Arvin. That’s a solid start, but imagine if we can get 1%, 5%, or 10% of the population to go with Arvin. That’s millions (billions!) of gallons of water saved.

Thanks for reading. Please help us spread the word, join our community, and stay in touch. Our newsletter, will keep you up to speed on everything we’re doing to be a friend of the people, and the planet.

It’s great to have you along with us for the ride.

D