Mari Jasmine and Tini Dahl on a Creative and Sustainable Pursuit with Sora

All around us, numerous brands display an eagerness to jump on the green bandwagon and label their products “eco-friendly”, “organic”, “ethical,” but how much of this is virtue signaling? How much of the claims ring true? And how many reflect true quintessential green and sustainable values? It can be hard to tell especially now that microplastics, also found in our clothes and synthetic materials, are becoming a serious matter like single-use plastics. These contribute to ocean pollution in a subtle but pervasive way—leaching into the ocean just by being washed and consequently seeping into all sorts of marine life, and eventually ingested by humans. Essentially, our oceans have turned into a toxic soup of plastic waste and new raw materials are still being produced and used. Sora is one of the brands acting with intent as it weaves together creative aspiration and innovation to lessen environmental impact—to make a positive change one towel at a time.

Sora is a brand well-known for its intentionality towards slow living that is mindful but meaningful. Sora was borne out of love for the planet and passion for creating stylish but simple solutions. ‘Sør’ defined as south in Norway and ‘sora’ translated to sky in Japanese, Sora is inspired in staying light, being grounded, but always reaching for new heights. These professional and personal guiding tenets set them out to fuse art with technology and eventually recycled plastic to fabric.

For Sora, this journey has started from within. Founders Mari Jasmine and Tini Dahl couldn’t find one versatile towel that does it all: keep them dry at the beach, stop from slipping in a yoga class, and allow to travel lightly during weekend adventures. Mari was looking for the perfect non-slip yoga towel, and Tini was looking for a compact towel she can take to hiking without weighing her down. For them, incorporating the design philosophies of their home countries to the brand with a greater purpose is a step towards filling in the market’s gaps and needs, and its fullest sense, encouraging others to redefine lifestyles and make eco-conscious decisions in little ways.

With roots from Australia, Japan, and Norway, these two friends collaborated with all-female artists from around the world to design ethically-made and austerely beautiful multi-purpose towels that you can take freely with you—from yoga to the beach, from city to the sea, from house to outdoor adventures. A nod to creativity and the need for positivity in the face of uncertainty, something we’ve all found ourselves in, is seen in every piece they release. The sources of inspiration that they anchor the art on, albeit through our own prism, are nature, flora, female form, colors, geometric shapes, abstract concepts, architecture, and the great outdoors.

Sora’s core lies not just in design sensibilities or the kind of living that exults deliberately in curated moments, but a truer expression of the self, a visual representation of the artists, and a greater purpose for the planet—something more meaningful and more authentic. A brand that embraces all forms of creativity and empowers women of all ages, sizes, races, and ethnicity. A brand that transforms post-consumer recycled plastic bottles into functional towels that are lightweight, highly absorbent, quick dry, sand-repellent, anti-microbial and has moisture-activated grip. And ultimately, a brand that encourages you to own less but do more. To celebrate wellness and advocate for collective change with a broader environmental mission. The art seductions featured on its capsule collections have always been aimed as much at the soul as the body.

In this article, Mari and Tini share with us Sora’s pursuit, its brand ethos, the creative process with featured artists, their approach on sustainability, and the waves they are making.

Tini Dahl and Mari Jasmine, co-founders of Sora

ON THE BRAND’S ROOTS

What sparked and made you decide to start this brand?

Tini: It was completely random when Mari asked me if I knew of a brand that sold nice yoga towels. “Why don’t they just have nicely designed towel?”, Mari asked. And a couple of weeks later, I was on a hike in Hong Kong. Here in Hong Kong, you hike to a beach and you hike back. You bring everything in a backpack. I brought with me these cotton towels and they ended up being so sandy, so heavy, so wet, and so smelly because of the moist in the backpack. I was telling my fiancé at the time and said, “Can we just buy one of these sports towels?” and the only ones we could find were just in black and gray microfiber. That was our moment when we were like “Aha!” maybe there is a little gap in the market here and a niche that doesn’t exist yet. Our aha moment was three-fold: One when we realized there was a gap in the market, two when we realized that it could be done in a sustainable way, and three was when we laid out the samples on the floor and it looked like a blank canvas—something you could paint on and we can work with artists.

From that “aha” moment, what happened next?

Tini: We started in 2018. We did a lot of brand exercise. We went through who our customer is to understand who we are trying to reach. When we already had our products, logo, brand story, and what we wanted to do, we launched our website online. We worked with one Filipino artist, Mercedes Olondriz, and we launched with 3 prints and 2 solid colors. From day 1, we started seeing these orders come in and people were messaging us where they could find our towels. When we sold out our first batch, very shortly after 4 or 5 months, we started getting a lot of requests from retailers who wanted to sell our products. That is how we became what we are today.

Can you share to us Sora’s mission and purpose?

Mari: Our mission is about celebrating creativity and wellness. We’re incredibly fortunate to work with many talented artists from around the world to make our vision come to life. We also wanted to create product that is beautiful yet functional, and searched hard to find the right fabric with hard-working properties.

Design is a very significant element that makes Sora successful and fascinating, can you share to us how closely related it is to both your roots and influences?

Tini: Because it’s something that’s so rooted in both of us, we both grew up very close to nature. Our families are nature-oriented. The Australian mentality, towards the use of nature, emerging yourself in nature and sustainability, is very similar to the Scandinavian way of looking at it. One of the first things I can remember learning as a kid was to not litter. So that is really something we both connected on. What we can take more from the Scandinavian side is the design aspect: The minimalism, the multi-functionality of the product, and the simple approach. We don’t have 200 different prints and it’s not about flooding the market. We have small collections and limited pieces; we don’t release things every single week. From the Australian side, it’s the laidback-ness of the brand: Very chill, beachy and less prestigious approach to the brand. From the Japanese side, it’s quite similar to Scandinavia: Simple lines, simple colors, not so busy, and very pared down.

How important is functionality and versatility?

Tini: Versatility is one of the biggest things about our brand. The need to have so many different products need to stop. We really wanted to hone the versatility and multipurpose-ness of this towel. We wanted to have one product that could do it all and that is something really important to us. A couple of years ago, it was just this mass consumerism where it was all about having so many quantities of things like having 20 different bags and 7 eyeliners. We need something that is about owning less and doing more. You make it so beautiful that people really care about it and they love this one piece.

We were very excited about launching the bottle and I think it was a full circle moment for us. It’s about having products that can do more than one thing. Our bottle also functions as a thermos.

ON PRODUCTION PROCESS AND SUSTAINABILITY

The towels are consciously made from recycled plastic bottles. How do you make the towels from plastic bottles? What is their role and approach to practice?

Tini: We work with a supplier that is certified by GRS (Global Recycle Standard). It’s a third-party that comes in and makes sure that the product is made in socially, environmentally, and chemically responsible way. They specialize in sports towels and multi-purpose towels. It’s co-owned by a woman. We work with them on fabric composition. They collect plastic bottles, labels and lids are removed, they break it down into smaller pieces, they apply heat and then shape those small bits of pieces into pebbles. We only work with clear plastic. Then, you extrude it into a yarn, so it becomes stringy. We take that yarn and make it into a ball of yarn, then we weave that into a fabric. Once that fabric is made, we take that for digital printing.

Aside from towels, we came up with a reusable bottle that hopefully inspires people to carry their water around. We work together with them on how we can improve our products all the time, on how to keep things more sustainable but functional. They teach us how the process works. It’s like a collaboration too.

ON CREATIVE PROCESS AND CAPSULE COLLECTIONS

How do you pick which artist to feature and collaborate with? How does the artist fuse their individuality with Sora’s philosophies?

Tini: We actually get a lot of artists that reach out to us and those who showed their portfolio. Other times, it is either you jump into this rabbit hole online and you find all of these beautiful artists. Another way is from traveling. We can walk into an art gallery, find the artist, look them up and reach out to them.

You have Mercedes who is a photographer, she takes photos of the leaves and turns them into art. You have Kit who did Sirkel with us and she’s all about the feminine form and the mix between modernity and nature, Chi who is just a burst of color and fun and Hannah does these fun icons. We want to find someone whom we don’t want to change their work so much. Rather than having an artist merge to fit our philosophy, it’s about finding an artist that already matches ours.

Mari: And although Arantxa and Euri specializes in creating decorative pieces using gold leaf and other metals as a medium, they were able to bring their talents to beautiful towels through our newest collection.

Can you walk us through the creative process to produce the designs for the towels?

Mari: Each collection is designed with a different artist, which is fun as they all turn out to be so different. We usually start by looking at the style of the artist we’re working with, and come up with a theme that we’re both happy to explore. It’s very much a collaborative process and we bounce off each other’s ideas.

The medium depends on who we work with. Most of the designs we’ve created have been digital, but we have a collection in the works with a painter, who sketched out some of her ideas first before painting them in a larger size. We then digitized these prints and translated them into a pattern for our towels.

In the end, the goal is for everyone involved to be happy with what we’ve designed together.

Can you tell us more about your capsule collections?

Mari: Flow Collection is a reminder to slow down and appreciate our bodies for all the wonderful things they do. It’s also a tribute to body in movement, to being in the zone, to being in a state of flow.

The Botanicals Collection was made in collaboration with artist Mercedes Olondriz. She’s a painter, muralist and digital pattern maker that works with native flora. She searches for flowers and leaves that would work well to form a print, photographs them, then remasters them digitally. By taking inspiration from the world around us, we seek a deeper connection with the natural elements we so often forget to appreciate.

Sirkel Collection is a collaboration with London-based artist Kit Agar. We were drawn to Kit for her modern, calming colors and subdued design. The six-piece collection ranges from pebbles and mountain tops to the female form in geometry and abstract style.

After a more subdued and calming collection with Kit, we wanted to explore something more bold, colorful and fun—which is exactly what Chi Gibbs is known for. Venice Collection takes inspiration from the colors and shapes of Palm Springs and mid-century architecture. The campaign was shot on a hot summer day in Venice beach California. The shoot was somewhat serendipitous and we worked with an all-female team and it was the first campaign which we didn’t personally photograph, so that was really exciting for us.

The colors we chose for the Amble Collection reminded me of my home in Australia, whether it be the dusty red sand of the outback, the eucalyptus greens, or the bright yellow sunlight. We worked with Hanna KL to come up with some cute icons that remind us of memories we’ve had in the outdoors. With Amble, we launched our latest product, the SORA bottle. This was a full circle moment for us – from creating towels out of recycled plastic bottles, to reducing the amount of plastic waste circulating in the environment in the first place.

The Sora Mini is your perfect sweat towel, hand towel, and everything towel. Made with the same love and recycled material as our flagship product.

For the Fervor collection, we teamed up with artistic duo Euri Lorenzo and Arantxa Solis from Mexico. Inspired by their home, this series of designs seeks to evoke the warmth of home while instilling a sense of wonder to those who see it, through a wide range of depictions from familiar landscapes to abstract concepts.

Arantxa Solis and Euri Lorenzo for Sora’s Fervor collection

To know more about microplastics, kindly visit this link. Discover more about SORA on their website.