Hello everyone!
I hope my letter finds you well.
Since we’ve been growing recently ( and I’m so thankful to you for this ) I thought about sharing with you some guidelines of our philosophy.
Alloa Casale proposes Well-crafted clothes, beautiful in their simplicity and practical.
Because the products you love are the same ones you keep, you take care of, you use, repair and reuse.
The most sustainable garment is the one you use often and for a long time.
Essential design, timeless and natural fabrics are fundamental requirements for clothing according to the circular economy idea.
A piece that follows these qualities defiles trends and can be worn from one generation to another, reinventing it. A piece of clothing made with a natural fabric, once it has done its time ( we make clothes last for a long time, not forever), may be disassembled and its fibres regenerated for making new pieces.
I try to create a product capable of encouraging you to do all this and I do it through some points that are fundamental for me.
SUSTAINABLE / RESPONSIBLE MATERIALS:
I am committed to reducing the social and environmental footprint of our material choices. I use fibres that are 100% natural, biodegradable and that are produced by using renewable resources. Our fabrics require very little chemical processes and support practices in agriculture that respect the producers and the environment.
My goal is to become increasingly transparent in terms of my supply chain.
RESPONSIBLE WORK:
Our clothes are designed, modelled, cut and sewed right here in my lab, with the support of my husband and in the company of my daughter.
Every piece of clothing is sewed by me and after being made is ironed, packed and dispatched by me or my husband. If you are “lucky” your package will be one of those that have been decorated by our daughter Agata.
REDUCED ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT:
As a business that produces new physical products, it is my responsibility to make every effort to reduce the impact caused by our operations to a minimum. I analyse our production cycle and I try to improve it to extend the usability of our pieces and to reduce wastage wherever it is possible.
A concrete example is the Anna Top: the width of the piece of clothing in the larger size is designed to occupy the whole height of the fabric without having to cut the piece in two different heights. This allows me to keep lower the production cost and to have practically null spare fabric.
In detail, the Anna top requires 70cm of silk for a cost in terms of fabric of 20 euros.
If the Anna Top were slightly wider in its bigger size it would occupy140 cm of fabric, increasing the cost to 40 euros and generating a huge leftover. (Perhaps I can be clearer thanks to the drawing here below)
My goal is to become a zero waste company.
INCLUSIVITY AND ACCESSIBILITY
A point on which I still want to insist and work a lot: making everyone feel welcomed and celebrated through our images and marketing. Unfortunately in this regard I’m aware of still being very far from the idea that I have in my mind, but it’s harder than I expected to find models of various wearability in our zone and we still aren’t sufficiently structured for something more challenging. But hey, if you happen to know a model or a girl that likes getting photographed and who you think could be interested, please write to us!
Our range of sizes and the lines of our models greatly adapt to the majority of the physicalities and this is very important for us. However, in this regard I would like to soon add a size xxxl to improve our inclusivity in this context.
SHARING OF RESOURCES
Sharing is a wonderful way to connect people and to keep them updated on the fabricating process of physical products.
Transmitting information is a way to tell our products’ story. It helps people understand the work behind the production of a simple top and the costs it implies.
Being a small activity and maintaining the whole production under the same roof puts us in an advantageous position in this sense and so I feel this sharing as imperative.
I would like to tell you next time about how effectively a Alloa Casale piece is created. If you are interested, therefore, keep following us and if you have a friend or you know someone who might be interested in this subject, invite them to join us. It would make me very happy.