Fashion designer Virgil Abloh has created a water bottle for Evian that is made almost entirely from recycled plastic and visualises this history through a distinctive hammered texture.
The 500 millilitre bottle can be fully recycled at the end of its life and is designed to act as a kind of mission statement, giving form to the brand's commitment to become circular by 2025.
"I wanted to create a shape that was as iconic as the Evian brand, whilst representing how the product has been reinvented using old bottles," said Abloh.
"My new hammer motif reflects how this new design has been reconstructed from waste materials, which in itself was a whole new challenge and a new step in my partnership with Evian."
The release marks the first time that Evian has launched a bottle made entirely of recycled polyethylene terephthalate (rPET) in the United States. By 2025, the brand aims to use exclusively recycled plastic across its entire portfolio, save for lids and labels.
Last year, the mineral water brand already released rPET versions of its three most popular formats – the 500 millilitre, 750 millilitre and 1.5 litre bottles – in countries across Europe.
But all of these bottles, including Abloh's latest design, still feature a label and cap made of virgin high-density polyethylene (HDPE) and oriented polypropylene (OPP), which Evian claims is necessary to preserve "water purity and quality for consumers".
In a bid to eliminate all non-essential packaging from its products, the company has also released a "fully circular" label-free bottle but this design was only rolled out in the French hospitality sector.
Abloh, who was named Evian's creative advisor for sustainable innovation design in 2018, has previously created a series of reusable glass bottles for the mineral water brand, which sold out instantly.
As part of his role, the designer is involved in the re-design of Evian products as well as acting as a youth whisperer, communicating "the importance of innovation in design and sustainability" to his loyal fanbase.
"As champions of youth culture, Virgil and Evian generate awareness of the circular economy and collectively inspire new generations to enact positive sustainable change," a spokesperson for the brand told Dezeen.
Most recently, he launched a $1 million scholarship fund for fashion design students of black, African American or African descent, to which Evian contributed alongside Abloh-fronted brands Off-White and Louis Vuitton.
Together with Evian, he also held a sustainable design competition in 2020, looking for innovative solutions for some of the most pressing environmental issues of our time.
The winner, Royal College of Art graduate Danielle Elsener, took home a $50,000 grant for her zero-waste pattern cutting system, which eliminates the 15 per cent of material that goes to waste in the production of an average garment.