
Sustainable Design
There’s a responsibility that comes with making things. One that goes beyond us and lies with the future generations that will inherit this world.
“Designers are in a powerful position to create a better world – or to contribute to further destruction”.
We place that responsibility at the heart of all we do. It guides everything and decides even more.
It’s why we can trace our materials back to their source, make fabrics from harvested plants and recycled plastics, use rainwater to dye our textiles, and make sure we reduce, re-use or recycle our manufacturing waste. And it’s why we’ll never stop trying to be, or do, better.


It all starts with sustainable design
As the Austrian designer and educator, Victor Papenek said “Designers are in a powerful position to create a better world – or to contribute to further destruction”. Of course we want to create a better world, so for every new collection, the first question we ask as designers is, how can we design sustainably? What raw materials can we use? Can we achieve the required performance standards without any added chemistry? How many manufacturing processes will be involved? What will happen to the product at end of life?
Fortunately, we have a textile design studio which is brimming with textile talent – from designers and colorists to innovators and technical experts, they understand the intricacies of environmental textile design. We work in partnership with design houses, transport operators, corporate end-users and the architecture and design community to transform a design vision into material reality.

Plant-based perfection
It's the source of the raw materials themselves which have the largest environmental impact. And while man-made petrochemical synthetics and recycled polyesters might have a lower embodied carbon impact, we innately believe that nature not only knows better, but also does better. So, we prefer to use natural fibre types, either mother nature’s smart and renewable fiber – pure new wool – or the intimate blends of wool and harvested plants like hemp and flax.
These contain fibers which grow naturally inside the stems of the plants, which are both rapidly renewable and biodegradable. As the plants grow, they boost biodiversity, providing a habitat for wildlife. When blended intimately with wool, they have an amazing effect, providing a higher-level of flame retardancy with beautiful colour effects.

Recycle, recycle, recycle...
When it comes to recycling, we’ve been doing our bit for a long time, introducing our first recycled fabrics as long ago as the 1990s. But in 2022, we made the decision to do more. We bought a textile recycling capability called iinouiio, specializing in wool and cashmere recycling, re-inventing the art and craft of shoddy manufacturing for the modern day.
This gives us the capability to take sustainable design to new heights, allowing us to recycle natural fibers, re-use the color held within them, and create new a category of eco-conscious circular yarns and fabrics. We’ve never liked to see things go to waste. Now, we’ll see even less of it.
