OUR MATERIALS

Alcantara is a soft, microfibre suede-like material, made from a blend of polyester and polyurethane. 

While a Carbon Zero certified product and considered a somewhat sustainable alternative, Alcantara is not biodegradable, and still contributes to microplastic shedding into our environment. We currently use Alcantara as a soft lining for our structured pieces, but are actively looking to phase this material out and develop an alternative. 

While a natural product, conventional cotton uses 16% of the world’s insecticides, and an estimated $2 billion in pesticides, dramatically affecting the surrounding soil and waterways. Conventional cotton uses 2700 liters of water to make a single t-shirt, and produces 1.8x its weight in Co2 emissions. In addition, conventional cotton farming affects 300 million workers, with poor conditions, long hours, and exposure to toxic chemicals. We are currently working towards GOTS cotton to have an even lighter impact on people and the planet. 

A fine, thread-like material, conventional silk is made using the cocoon of silk worms.

In conventional silk, the silkworms are fed mulberry leaves from farms using pesticides, insecticides and other harmful chemicals, before the silk larvae are boiled to keep the cocoon intact. A high-water usage production, conventional silk is a major contributor to water pollution in the regions surrounding silk farms, and has little labour regulations. We are actively transitioning from conventional silk to GOTS certified silk. 

Derived from coal and petroleum (fossil fuels), nylon is a non-biodegradable plastic that undergoes a heavy chemical process to transform it into a diverse material.  

While nylon is notorious for its heavy use of water and energy in processing, it also produces nitrous oxide during manufacturing, a toxic gas which is over 300x worse for the environment than Co2, rapidly speeding up the effects of global warming. Unlike polyester, nylon can however be recycled. We actively avoid using virgin nylon in our pieces. 

Polyester fabric is known as polyethylene terephthalate or PET plastic, and is molded into filaments that are then woven into the material, making up 55% of all textile production globally. 

Made from fossil fuels, polyester not only sheds harmful microplastics with every use into our environment, it also cannot currently be recycled and takes hundreds of years to biodegrade - meaning polyester fabrics and waste are currently dumped at landfills, or incinerated, emitting more Co2 and toxic chemicals into the atmosphere.