Our 100% Upcycled Quilted Vests: Our Story
In honor of the launch of our new kids and baby capsule collection on Ulule x Who's Next: The 100% Upcycled Quilted Vests, we decided to tell you our product's story...
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The "Les Petites Chutes" Workshop
The Azala story began in early 2020 in Madagascar, when Chabina (co-founder of the brand) decided to create a research office dedicated to upcycling within her garment manufacturing company. This desire to rework production offcuts is inherent to the manufacturing trade, where dead loss of fabric is necessarily significant.
From Accessories to Clothing
The original idea was to recycle the small pieces of fabric from the factories' cutting plans. When the workshop first started, it mainly created accessories entirely from this "textile waste": bags and satchels, computer sleeves, wallets, etc... Until the desire to make a fully upcycled garment coincided with the workshop's know-how.
Upcycled Padding
In early 2022, a simple idea was proposed: shred the smallest offcuts to create a fully recycled padding – in the form of wadding panels. And although the process seems easy, a few complexities remain. How do you hold this artisanal wadding between two layers of fabric? How do you prevent the shredded cotton from dispersing?
A solution was quickly found to recreate an upcycled wadding: by enclosing and sewing the shredded cotton directly into an obsolete cotton veil... This was the beginning of a great adventure!
Padding, Patchwork, Deadstock, Obsolete Accessories: The Birth of the First 100% Upcycled Vest
In early 2022, there was no product yet, just a mechanism for transforming industrial waste into recycled, 100% cotton wadding.
Logically, we decided to start from this wadding to make our first product: a padded vest for children...
A new idea emerged: what if we went further and made the first children's garment using no new materials at all. This made things more complicated. We tried to rework our small fabric scraps, but it was too time-consuming... and then an idea came to us... Why not standardize the shape of our offcuts?
How did we do it? We decided to work directly with local manufacturers to offer them an easy-to-implement CSR action plan.
Everything happens at the cutting stage. When a manufacturer receives a roll of fabric, they prepare it for cutting by doing their layout; that is, they place all the pieces of their garment on the roll of fabric: legs, collars, sleeves, etc... But since these are not geometric pieces that fit together perfectly, a significant part of the fabric (15-20%) is lost.
In all these empty spaces, we decided to place small squares of identical size so that after cutting, we could recover a standard offcut format.
It is from these small squares that we then make the front of our vest!
For the rest of the vest, we have access to a large reservoir of deadstock and unused accessories in the manufacturers' cellars...
Challenge accepted!
The Journey Continues...
Beyond the garment itself, the foundation of our project was already well established: solar panels, a water treatment unit, a social center, a medical center, permaculture, and certifications (GOTS, ECOCERT, etc.). Our existing environment allowed us to launch a project with a solid commitment from the very beginning.
Of course, the work is never done, and our real commitment is to go even further! To introduce you to new products (and they are coming soon), to have a greater social and environmental impact... but also... to make a lasting impression with our beautiful products!
Sofiane Bouhali for Azala