Our Materials
Much of the environmental impact of fashion happens at the raw materials stage. That’s why material selection is important to us. It also affects the way you’ll care for the garment and how your garment goes back to the earth eventually.
All our designs are made from organic, renewable, and biodegradable fibres. When sourcing for materials, we implement a selection criteria, taking into consideration water use, land use, eco-toxicity, human toxicity and greenhouse gas emissions. This is balanced against material availability, price and garment care implications.
Tencel® Lyocell
As of 2020, we only use lyocell certified by Lenzing TENCEL™. Lenzing TENCEL™ certified lyocell is produced by more environmentally responsible processes from sustainably sourced wood. The biobased fibers are manufactured using an environmentally responsible production process and are certified as compostable and biodegradable. This means that they can fully revert back to nature.
Lenzing TENCEL™ Lyocell uses a closed loop manufacturing process, where over 99% of water and non-toxic solvent used in the manufacturing process is recovered and recycled. To learn more, visit Lenzing's website.
Organic Cotton
At Esse, we only use GOTS certified organic cotton. Organic cotton is grown using methods and materials that have a low impact on the environment, using production systems that replenish and maintain soil fertility and are grown without the use of toxic and persistent pesticides and synthetic fertilizers.
Unlike conventional cotton that creates the loss of soil due to mono- crop culture and intensive irrigation, organic cotton ensures healthy soil through crop rotation. The healthy soil creates a natural balance and mitigates the use of insecticides and pesticides.
Linen
Linen is made from flax and is one of the most biodegradable fabrics that has withstood the test of time. Strong, naturally moth resistant and anti-bacterial, linen is gentle on your skin and the planet.
Flax is an extremely resilient and versatile plant that can grow in poor soil, consuming far less water than cotton. Every part of the flax plant can be used, which means that there is very little by-product from growing this crop. The production of linen uses very little water and emits only ¼ of the carbon as cotton per pound of fibre. Most of our linen is made in mills that are OEKO-TEX certified. OEKO-TEX checks for presence of hazardous chemicals in the dyed fabric, carcinogens, azo dyes and other chemical limits in accordance to the European REACH standards.
Cupro
Cupro is a regenerated cellulose fibre made from cotton linter, which is a short downy fibre left on the cotton seed after extracting the longer fibres for cotton yarn. It has a smooth and silky feel, attractive lustre and is highly absorbent. Using a recycled fibre that was previously discarded, Cupro gives new life to pre-consumer waste, and is a biodegradable fibre that breaks down naturally after disposal. Like Lyocell, Cupro is produced in a closed loop manufacturing process.
Pro-viscose
ProViscose® is a fiber that makes up for weaknesses of rayon fiber which decreases in strength and elongates in humidity. By blending Lenzing Viscose® (70%) and TENCEL® (30%), the strength of the fabric is significantly enhanced when it is wet and there is no deformation even when it goes through a strong laundering process. This ensures longevity of the garment after many washes and wears, whilst still ensuring that the fabric is wearable, breathable and goes back to the earth at the end of its lifecycle.
Deadstock fabric
Deadstock fabrics are leftover fabrics that are a result of a broken fashion system where brands over order fabrics. A small proportion of our garments are made from deadstock fabrics, but we recognise that there are some challenges to using this category of textiles. Besides having little-to-no supply chain traceability, it is also hard to ascertain the chemical and environmental impact of these textiles during the manufacturing process. Our decision for using deadstock fabrics stems from our desire to repurpose excess fabric and divert it from ending up in a landfill.
Corozo Nut
We chose corozo as an alternative to horn and plastic. Coming from the Tagua tree, corozo is also known as Vegetal Ivory. It has a unique grain pattern, delivers scratch-free buttons and is extremely durable. Corozo is naturally harvested and can only be collected after it has fallen from the tree. Once mature, a Tagua tree can produce up to 25kg of nuts, for over a hundred years. Corozo is also a completely biodegradable product, and a great alternative for plastic.
Recycled PET
Our garment tags and interlining is made from post-consumer PET bottles. Our supplier is BCI, C2C Gold, bluesign, ECO-CHECK, Global Recycled Standard, Higg Index, ISO 14001, ISO 9001, OEKO-TEX® Standard 100, REACH and Restricted Substances List certified and uses cutting-edge technologies in its manufacturing processes to minimise their impact on the environment, like energy harvesting technologies, zero liquid discharge, and monitoring systems, ensuring that our tags and interlining is made in the most responsible standards.
Our sourcing criteria
When sourcing for materials, we ensure that the fibre is a natural plant-based fibre that is biodegradable, renewable or has a potential for circularity.
If the natural fibre is environmentally or socially intensive - we only use it when it has been certified, e.g. Global Organic Textile Certified Organic Cotton.
Occasionally, we may use synthetic fibres that are recycled or upcycled to reduce our environmental impact.
Our promise
100% of our garments are made from natural fibres.
In 2022, we wanted to push the envelope and hold ourselves to an even higher standard when selecting materials for our designs and set a goal to transition 50% of our trims to biodegradable and/ or recycled materials and to be sourced from traceable, ethical and certified sources.