SOURCING
TRANSPARENCY
Sustainability aspects of tHERAPY Recycle and Exorcise.
Traceability, sourcing of materials and resource efficiency.
Transparency and traceability are crucial for any brand or fashion project today. At tHERAPY we don't see it as an option. We believe all designed objects should be made to last, respecting the people and the environment.
We believe REUSING things that have already been made and used, is one of the most integral ways of being sustainable.
Where do our materials come from?
We use different upcycling techniques on already existing, discarded or second hand materials, clothing and fabrics to produce our clothing items and accessories.
We source our materials as locally and transparent as possible. We use the less new materials as possible. We make pieces that are made to last avoiding materials that come with a programmed short term obsolescence. This means, we use good and endurable quality materials.
We upcycle so called post-consumer waste mostly, although in some cases we buy from lots of closed factories, shops or discards from factory production. For instance, discard material from the production of work uniforms from a factory in Cordoba, Argentina.
we produce the items ourselves and we also work with seamstresses who sew in their own workshops, according to their own production times and rates.
Rosana makes basic arrangements and repairs, while Raquel is the one who directs the production of a factory of work uniforms and who provides us with the discard material for the specific pieces that she produces for us, a model of harness-bra made out of this material discard with a pattern provided by us.
This are Rosana and Raquel:
The processes and materials on images
Denim from post consumer DISCARDS
Leather from pre and post consumer DISCARDS
Work clothes / uniforms from post consumer DISCARDS
THIS IS US in one of our weekly meetings accross the atlantic ocean!
Cheers!
Poli & Angie
Berlin, Germany
Cordoba, Argentina
Our fabric labels are made in Argentina, until now we haven't been able to find a ecological fabric label that suit us but we are commited to achieve this for the next batch of labels.
Paper labels are made in Germany, absorving the extra carbon emission surcharge.
We clean the clothes ourselves, with bio soaps. We use washing bags to avoid the microwaste.
We source our materials locally and in person, be this post- or pre-consumer waste, dead stocks or new materials. But we are constantly in the search for materials, so it means wherever we are, also while traveling, we research and search personally for materials.
we are based in Berlin, Germany and Córdoba, Argentina. We mostly source in this two places our textiles and accessories to rework.
We find second hand textiles in local thrift stores, flea markets, swap parties, and we also receive them from people who contact us to give us things they no longer need. We receive them as donations or we buy this materials from them.
There are waste and dead stock deposits where we also source our materials, in Cordoba as well as in Berlin. This deposits receive waste or discarded materials of all kinds, select them and organise them for people like us to reuse it so it doesn't end up in the trash bin.
In this deposits we have find all the leather we reworked for our Pampa Outlaw collection, for instance. That was in Argentina. Newly, we also got a huge dead stock of belt-band as well as textiles discarded by Theater, publicity and fairs in Berlin and collected by the people from this deposit.
There is a small percentage of new materials such as eyeletes, rivets cord, elastic band, buckles, threads, needles, pins we do need to buy new, as long as we don't also find them on old stock deposits, which sometimes happens.
This new materials we buy only locally, it means we avoid completely materials that don't come from a national production. We even avoid as much as possible buying online and try to buy in person in our city.
- Deposit in Cordoba CITY where we buy discarded leather and metals from the leather goods industry: facebook.com/ledosrl
They say in their description: "We are dedicated to the sale of lots and occasional balances of leathers and supplies".
We only buy from them the discarded material that is sold per kilo and metals that are new but are balances and lots of old seasons and dead stocks, from factories that took them out of circulation.
- For the Now:On collection we also used discarded leather samplers of color and typology of old seasons from the Romanelli shoe factory who donated it to us: facebook.com/RomanelliCalzados
- Supplier for rivets and eyeletes in Córdoba: facebook.com/Imperio-Mayorista
- Discarded materials deposits in Berlin: www.material-mafia.net, www.berliner-stadtmission.de/textilhafen
- Supplier for haberdashery products in Berlin: www.naehkaufhaus.de
- Supplier for rivets and eyeletes in Germany: thal-versand.de
Resources efficiency
We avoid producing trash. We produce a minimum amount that we are constantly collecting for future uses. In all our collections there is always a connection with the last one. This is not only an aesthetic choice. It is the material connection. We use our own discards.