What materials are the bags made of?Updated a year ago
We use a few different materials for our bags, depending on the collection and item.
FABULOUS FIFTIES & FAB SEVENTIES
The Fabulous Fifties and Fab Seventies bags are made of faux leather – also known as artificial leather, imitation leather or vegan leather. It looks and feels like real leather. However, no animal components - as skin - are being used. That’s why a bag made of faux leather falls under a ‘vegan bag’ category.
Also, faux leather has many other advantages: it is robust, waterproof, and it doesn’t lose colour as fast as real leather does.
FUSION
The recycled cotton shoppers of the Fusion collection are made of pre-consumer recycled cotton: cotton that has been used in previous productions and is left over as a residue. Think of it as cutting waste; never used, but in this residual form not quite as nice and usable.
This residual waste is collected and then shredded into loose cotton fibers. These cotton fibres are spun into threads. From these threads 'new' cotton shoppers are made!
NATURA
Both the outer fabric and the lining of the Natura bags are made of 100% recycled PET. In this way you contribute to reducing the enormous plastic mountain in the world. As six 1.5 liter soda bottles provide enough fiber to make a Natura backpack and eight 1.5 liter soft drink bottles provide sufficient raw material to make a Natura leisure bag. This way many bottles are being reused.
Virtually no product is made from 100% recycled polyester. Because it is technically not (yet) possible. There are two ways to recycle PET: mechanically and chemically. In mechanical recycling, a plastic bottle or packaging is washed and shredded until it is again a polyester fiber, which then goes through the traditional production process again. Chemical recycling returns a plastic bottle to its so-called original monomers (organic molecules) that is almost identical from virgin polyester. They then return to the regular production process.
The majority of RPET is obtained through mechanical recycling, because this is the least expensive process and because it does not require (harmful) chemicals. However, due to this process, the resulting fibers lose a little of their strength and therefore have to be mixed with other fibers.