Get to know the expert facilities and skilled craftspeople who create our clothing. There are no shortcuts in creating long lasting quality and every part of the process deserves to be seen. We trace all facilities down to their individual locations and document and show all manufacturing facilities, most mills and as many of our farms as we're able to on this page.
The majority of our garments are made from plant based or natural fibers that are the products of skilled and responsible agriculture, land and animal management. Our cotton fibers come exclusively from GOTS certified organic farms in the United States, Egypt, Turkey and India. Our linen fibers are farmed in Belgium and France. Half of our wool production volumes are GRS certified recycled wool, the other half is virgin merino wool from just a handful of RWS and Nativa certified farms in southern Argentina. Synthetic fibers make up for just 1% of our material production, half of which is GRS certified recycled nylon or PET.
Our mills spin the fibers into yarns, weave or knit the yearns into fabrics, dye and finish the yarns or fabrics so they're ready for manufacturing into garments. The vast majority of our mills are Portuguese and Italian, with a few exceptions of specialist mills in Turkey, Japan and South Korea. We work with bleeding edge mills such as Candiani and ISKO in denim, Tollegno 1900 and Manteco in wool, Albini and Somelos in shirting. All our wool yarn and fabric mills are at least both GRS and RWS certified, all cotton jersey and cotton or linen woven fabrics mills are at least GOTS and OEKO-TEX certified.
Our manufacturers cut, sew, wash, press and pack our garments. These are some of the most laborious processes in a garment's creation, requiring tremendous skill and dexterity. We work exclusively with manufacturers in the European Union, with the vast majority of our facilities in Portugal and Italy. This proximity allows for strong relationships and ultimately better products. Aside from following the strict labor laws of the European Union, our manufacturers also adhere to multiple social responsibility standards outlined in our manufacturing agreements. In particular, they are bound to comply with all ILO principles: freedom of association and collective bargaining, elimination of forced labour, abolition of child labor, elimination of discrimination and the provision of a safe and healthy working environment. Wages shall meet or exceed legal minimum wage as well as constitute a proper living wage. We report factory average salaries on all our facilities below.
As part of our Full Traceability standard, we’re committed to visiting and documenting as many of our factories as possible. More specifically, we visit all Tier 1 (Cutting, Sewing, Laundry) and Tier 2 (Spinning, Knitting, Weaving, Dyeing) facilities and document them here. Where possible we go all the way down to Tier 3 (the farms). Even if we can't visit all facilities, we still trace them and disclose them on each garment and on our factory map below.