Edun (nude spelled backwards), a joint venture between U2’s Bono, his wife Ali Hewson and New York designer Rogan Gregory, was launched in Spring of 2005 after two years in development. The moniker Edun is also a play on the Garden of Eden and is meant to imply a sense of innocence, sensuality and a return to nature.
The company’s logo and the graphics used on some of the garments were inspired by the Art Nouveau movement, which was in many ways a response to the Industrial Revolution. The clothing line was created to reflect “a marriage of social activism and aesthetic innovation,” Bono says. Edun’s earthy, but chic designs are constructed of organic materials, which are made in family-run factories in Africa, South America and India who practice fair-labor practices.
Not only are the pieces in the clothing line socially conscious, they are also ripe with details that deem them worthy of their designer price tags. For example, some of the T-shirts are made using traditional Incan vegetable dyes and the jeans have a poem by German writer Rainer Maria Rilke embroidered inside their pockets that reads “We carry the story of the people who make our clothes around with us.”
