In recent years, as the importance of sustainability has become more urgent, many of us strive to lead a more sustainable way of life. You may have changed your eating habits and how you travel, but have you thought about what you wear?
One of the biggest culprits to environmental damage is fast fashion, clothes which are made cheaply to meet the demands of the high turnover of new styles. However, fast fashion is putting our future planet at risk. Many of us are changing how and what we buy to create a cleaner environment through the clothes we wear.
Our New Year’s Resolution for 2020 is to ensure that our carbon footprint remains as low as possible by continuing to improve our entire supply chain, production processes and product afterlife. Our goal is to create sustainable fashion that doesn’t sacrifice style or functionality. We promise that every product is made to the highest ethical standards and to keep our impact on the environment to a minimum from start to finish. For us, sustainability and fashion can co-exist and can lead to creativity and innovation.
Recycled Leather
We are excited to announce to you our new partnership with FRGB, a brand that produces recycled leather products. We will launch the collaboration in the first quarter of 2020.
Francs Bourgeois aka FRGB is a sustainable accessories brand with a vision to change the leather industry. The values at the core of our collaboration are to be ecologically responsible and socially ethical. Together, we have created a collection of handbags which are made from certified 100% recycled leather for the growing number of environmentally conscious consumers.
Recycled leather is an innovative alternative to traditional leather production, yet maintains the appearance and feel of genuine leather. It is formed using natural leather fibers from pre-consumer leather wastage, which would have otherwise been destroyed or buried in a landfill. One of our 100% recycled leather handbags is made from the scrap leather from 15-20 industrial leather gloves. The scraps of leather are turned into a powder and reformed to mimic all leather types. In our collection, we are using recycled leather with grained, smooth, crocodile and lizard finishes.
In keeping with the usual standards of Maison Hēroïne, the bags in the collection are designed with functionality in mind, their interiors all have organizational elements, whilst the exteriors are structured and minimalist with a playful twist.
Our sustainably sourced leather products
Sustainable fashion takes into account the entire supply chain and life cycle of a product, from where and how it is made to when it ends up in our landfills. It is important for us to think about how our products affect the environment and how to produce items that will last longer. We design with longevity in mind, ensuring that our products are all durable. We consider whether our customers would still like to wear our accessories ten years from now and design our products to have a timeless aesthetic.
We source our leathers from small, privately-owned Italian tanneries. Raising animals for leather, has an environmental cost but leather lasts a lifetime and more. Moreover, most vegan leather is essentially plastic and toxic, it falls apart and flakes, ending up in landfill within a few years.
Our sustainably sourced leathers are tenderly handcrafted into accessories in an family-owned artisan factory in northern Italy. In 2020, we promise to continue to be entirely sweatshop-free.
Read more about our materials and production
Carbon-neutral in 2020
We are committed to our goal of being completely carbon-neutral by the end of 2020 and are now re-designing all parts of the manufacturing and packing process which use non-sustainable materials and methods.
We hope that our New Year’s Resolution will remind you of the impact a purchase can have on the environment and inspire you to make sustainable choices in 2020. The small steps we can take each day will pave the path toward a more sustainable fashion future.