Seit 1978 vertreiben wir Stoffe aus Naturfasern.
Selling fabrics of natural fibres since 1978
At a time in which the textile market concentrated on the development and distribution of nylon and other synthetic fabrics, even way before the existence of any eco certifications, we had set our criteria high to which we hold our assortment to this day.
After the main European textile culture landscapes were swept away by a tsunami of cheap Asian products, the awareness for our second skin has grown again and almost daily we are confronted with questions about eco certifications as well as sustainability and social compatibility.
Yet our concept has too many aspects to be defined by the organic certification alone. In the following we would like to break down our fundamental principles for you.
All of our fabrics are made of natural, renewable raw materials. Seldom exceptions are made with certain fabrics which gain essentially from the addition of synthetic fibres due to technical or wearing comfort aspects (e.g. elastane in Stretch material).
We ensure the lowest chemical exposure to our fabrics possible. This is ensured throughout the whole production from dying, bleaching and so called finishing the fabric. We avoid synthetic resin layer, which would allow to be superwash, ironfree, easy-handling or anti-felting. The high chemical pollution with for example formaldehyde is one reason we do not offer any coloured fabrics for children.
We offer a huge selection of fabrics in their natural coloured tones because the “unadulterated” conventional fabrics still have a much smaller eco-footprint than organic-certified coloured fabrics.
No textile is as sustainable as the one which is loved and worn for a long time and possesses the quality to last. It replaces the countless nine-day-wonders that are often produced under inhumane working condition and with poor quality that determines them to be a mass-produced disposable commodity. For us this is the most important ecological criterion in our nowadays so common Throwaway Society but this unfortunately is not acknowledged by a recognised label to this day!
A great number of fabrics in our product range come from certified organic agriculture or rather are certified by GOTS. We are eager to expand our assortment at any time. Furthermore we assure social justice in our production line, as long as in our reach, by purchasing only at our well-known and preferably European suppliers. All present textile certifications are handed out by profit-oriented private enterprises.
Unlike in the case of the food industry, in which farmers can easily be certified, certifications for textiles uneven more expensive and complicated to obtain because every single step in production has to be certified individually: Cultivation, Harvesting, Spinning, Weaving, Washing, Dying and even Trading. This results in certifications being only profitable for big companies with an accordingly huge production.
Especially heritage preserving small factories and manufacturers being well worthy of support have no chance to get one of these expensive certifications.
If available we always prefer traditional production from small workshops as well as self-governing cooperations compared to fabric from the large-scale industry. These fabrics surpass the criteria of organic labels in ecological as well as social and crafting perspectives but are nearly impossible to certify – examples for this are our Allo-fabrics, Khadis, Kalamkaris. As long as this does not change the organic certification will and has to stay at our 4th position of criteria.
Further information to our GOTS certifications can be found on the website of GOTS.
The preservation of textile diversity is a great concern to us. Due to increasing industrialization of the very last few countries with a once rich and highly developed textile tradition, such as India, are losing their last few unique traditions of textile production and once high held quality standards are inflating progressively. Only fast and cheap produced goods promising a high margin survive on today’s markets - sustainable quality of textiles are counterproductive because the goods last too long to be profitable. Nowadays companies rather sell low quality that guarantees new sales due to low durability.
We counter this trend by looking for the needle in the haystack in the form of ageless and high-quality fabrics or giving production into commission in order to sustain small workshops – examples for this are our Jamavars, Wooljacquards, the Khadis, block prints from India, Nettel from Nepal.
Even if we live and work by the criteria described above it is not possible to fulfil all criteria with every single fabric. We would like to have uncompromising standards for all of our fabrics as a production in Europe with organic agriculture only. However many kinds of fabric do not exist with such quality to this day or not anymore. Often we depend on the annoying factor “price” - a Belgian wet spinned and piece-dyed organic linen is simply not affordable for most which prevents us from meeting the big production quantities to realize such an assortment. This is why we always have to compromise with our criteria described above and meeting practicability or rather marketability.
But you can always be sure that all of our fabrics are selected with consideration of all the criteria above and we stand by them. We offer you for the respective price always the best possible quality.