Building any business has its challenges, but when true sustainability is woven into the DNA of an organisation, a unique set of additional demands and pressures arise. The only way to endure them is as part of a robust team of individuals, all of whom believe in the mission to become THE sustainable fashion destination for ocean lovers everywhere. At least that’s our honest opinion!
This is our story, as told by the crew who man our incredible sustainable fashion ship, upon which everyone is firmly invested in creating products for a better future, that protect the ocean for future generations.
TWOTHIRDS Captain - Lutz
Any sustainable clothing brand needs someone to envision it in the first place. In the case of TWOTHIRDS that’s Lutz Schwenke, a German whose love for the ocean crystallised in Hawaii and which drove him to action in Bilbao, Spain, where he founded his sustainable clothing company in 2010. Since then the company has moved to Barcelona, where its offices cast an eye over the very ocean it is duty bound to protect.
You can probably tell from the places that Lutz spent his formative years that surfing and the ocean have been constants in his life. By harnessing his passion for the ocean and combining it with a tireless drive to see the fashion industry change its ways for the better, he has built TWOTHIRDS, from a small family-run startup, to one of the world’s foremost sustainable clothing brands.
What’s his secret?: remaining true to his and the brand’s original values, with TWOTHIRDS still as much a small family-run clothing brand from Barcelona as it ever was. Lutz’s wife, Loreto, oversees branding at the company. Their four children often feature in campaigns for our sustainable kids clothing line, Children of the Ocean. Even the family dog, Kala, does double shifts, acting as chief office pet and biscuit disposal manager.
Children of the Ocean Captain - Loreto
She guides the TWOTHIRDS brand image, spearheads our Children of the Ocean line, models, and somehow finds time to be a mother of four at the same time. A day in the life of Loreto Gala is a hectic one, but she wouldn’t have it any other way.
Being married to Lutz, she is every bit a part of the fabric of the company as he is, and is passionate about all things connected to sustainable living and eco-friendly fashion. Aside from her responsibilities at the company, she is a social media influencer in her own right, having built a community of 30k+ on Instagram. There’s not a sustainable dress, eco-friendly trouser or sustainable shirt of ours that Loreto has not tried on, modelled or had a hand in shaping in some way.
Design Starfish - Pilar
A sustainable clothing brand is nothing without designers capable of creating eco-friendly garments that look incredible and stand the test of time. That makes Pilar Garcia pivotal to the success of TWOTHIRDS, where she runs the eco fashion design department.
Pilar’s designs focus on being timeless, minimalist and functional, all things she somehow effortlessly pulls off in every sustainable clothing collection we launch.
She also knows all about how important local businesses are to restoring the fashion world to order, after decades of fast fashion neglect, because as well as designing eco clothes for TWOTHIRDS she runs a small haberdashery in the Gracia district of Barcelona. It is this close relationship to the city that infuses that special Mediterranean flavour and eco style twist into every TWOTHIRDS eco-friendly fashion piece.
Creative Merman - Emil
Sometimes it is hard to pinpoint exactly what makes one sustainable clothing brand stand out over another. Emil Kozak knows a thing or two about making that happen. Luckily for us he is TWOTHIRDS through and through. A Dane, who much the same as Lutz and Loreto is a huge admirer and practitioner of ocean sports, Emil is also a renowned graphic designer and artist, whose work has been exhibited in some of Europe’s top galleries as well as on the sustainable t-shirts our community wears each day.
It’s no exaggeration to say that Emil’s graphic designs – that featured on early sustainable t-shirts made by TWOTHIRDS – played a huge part in putting the company on the slow fashion map. His designs also influence every aspect of our sustainable brand, from the icons that tell customers the environmental credentials of our sustainable shorts or ethical activewear, all the way through to the designs that feature on our thermo bottles and sustainable beach towels.
Emil shows no sign of slowing down, constantly finding new artistic ways to keep TWOTHIRDS in the blue or green fashion spotlight.
Oceanographer - Kike
In-house content is one of the cornerstones of our brand, because it enables us to tell stories and communicate exactly why our slow fashion proposition is so much better for oceans and the planet than fast fashion alternatives.
While Emil is busy making that happen with graphic designs, Kike Martín does the same with stunning video content. Accompanied by our incredible shooting team, Kike is responsible for taking our newest eco fashion collections to beautiful destinations around Europe and North Africa (we always try to keep things as local as possible for carbon footprint reasons) where he makes every sustainable clothing thread and design feature dazzle.
Just like Emil, Lutz, and Loreto, Kike is a keen surfer, whose love for the ocean and the natural world comes across in every scene he shoots. It is ultimately shared passions such as these, and our unified mission statement to protect the ocean, that melds the TWOTHIRDS team into one that’s capable of taking sustainable fashion to never-before-seen heights.