A RECYCLED COTTON STORY

Our Heavy Recycled Cotton fabrics are created from yarn spun and woven in the Spanish mountains. The finished cloth is soft but hardy, reflecting the mountain landscape where it’s created. Up here, the sun beats down, almost close enough to touch. The hot, dry air feels desert-like but this is a lush landscape. Olive groves and poplar trees line the dusty pink tracks and wild goats clamber over the rocks. This is a textile town. The abundance of mountain streams making fertile ground not just for these hardy plants but for a community of textile factories. In most cases, fabric production, particularly cotton, requires a lot of water for cultivating and dyeing. The mill we are here to visit is different and special for it.

The original buildings are still in use and have been here since the 1940’s, when a second-generation family textile business turned to a revolutionary idea when faced with supply issues after the war. The idea to make yarn from textile waste was born out of a practical need rather than a desire for sustainable practices. Today this pioneering technology provides a much needed alternative to wasteful fabric production.

Several new, large, industrial buildings sit next to the old ones. Solar panels harness the powerful sun from their rooves. Recycling, spinning and weaving are all a short walk from one another, a rhythmic and industrious village.

The recycled cotton content used in our fabrics is repurposed from waste created by the garment industry: a second life for offcuts created during production and the post consumer waste of unsold and discarded clothing. There are five key stages in its production…

ONE.

Textile waste arrives in the mountains from around the globe. Compacted into dense bricks and stacked high in walls of cotton offcuts, ready to begin their second life. The bales shown here, towering over us in this vast warehouse, hold just one week’s worth of waste.

TWO.

Using state of the art machinery the cotton is cut, chopped and ground back down into fine, fluffy fibres. The fibre is compacted into cloud-like clumps. The fibres are baled according to colour.

THREE.

A sample of each colour is taken from the large bales and labelled. The technicians can then begin mixing new colours by blending the different colour fibres together: just like mixing paint. Once the combined fluffy fibres are the desired tone, a new formula is recorded and this sample is also stored and labelled. In this way a huge library of colours is built.

FOUR.

The colour formulas are sent downstairs to the factory where huge bales of different colour fibres are combined on an industrial scale, following the exact recipe. Once blended together the fibres are spun into a fine yarn and coned, ready for weaving.

FIVE.

Setting up the warp for these industrial looms can take up to two days. The weft is woven, rhythmically and steadily, to create the finished cloth. The cloth is rolled, packed and shipped to our warehouse in Rye.

With a 55,000 Martindale rub test our Heavy Recycled Cottons are perfect for upholstery and soft furnishings that need to withstand all the activity of daily life. Explore the collection below.

Poplar Heavy Recycled Cotton, Carob Stripe Heavy Recycled Cotton, Ecru Heavy Recycled Cotton

Brick Stripe Heavy Recycled Cotton, Apple Bon Bon Heavy Recycled Cotton, Charcoal Stripe Heavy Recycled Cotton

Porridge Heavy Recycled Cotton, Sycamore Stripe Heavy Recycled Cotton, Buckwheat Heavy Recycled Cotton