Meet our sustainable and ethical designers
Tropicca was born by the love of handloom techniques and it became a collaborative initiative with artisans in a small country town in Brazil. With the motto of "our tool is love and sustainability is the result", Tropicca has been producing outstanding fashion products that are not just stunning, but very importantly they are on a mission of delivering ethical and sustainable fashion pieces.
Tropicca's Handloom Bags are made using recycled VHS tapes. The pieces are winners at the 12th House & Gift Design awards, recognized by its sustainability concept. The products are made from natural yarns and recycled VHS-tape. Water-free manufacturing.
At Purple Mango we stock a range of curated fashion and design products from Brazilian designers that produce beautiful ethical and sustainable fashion. Check the products here.
We currently work with a eight outstanding designers of sustainable fashion, and watch this space as very soon we will be receiving brand new stock from other amazing designers. If you want to receive information on new releases, click here.
flavia amadeu
tropicca
another land
Another Land is a designer studio with a focus in development of prints. Another Land promotes
the conscious production and consumerism through offering a range of eco-friendly and sustainable
design products that cruise around homeware and fashion.
In a time where the irresponsible consumerism has come to an extreme level, the designers from Another Land
aim to bring a new concept that challenges this cycle and gives both designers and customers an opportunity
to reflect, question and understand the processes that are taken to reach a final design piece.
Another Land runs away from the programmed obsolescence in the fashion industry. The main starting material
for Another Land's pieces is a fabric that is made using 80% recycled cotton and 20% recycled plastic bottles.
Everything at Another Land is thought, planned and executed with a conscious and responsible production in mind:
this is their rule, and part of their DNA.
GRIFE PROVIDENCIA
“Grife Providencia” helps the environment and society through fashion design. The label was born as part of a social project of the Brazilian bank “Banco Providencia”. Today, the project has 18 development agencies through 104 impoverished communities around Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. As a result, around 1440 families each year are enrolled in the programs, which help them learning new skills, generating income and overcoming the poverty line.
With the guidance of the fashion designer Luiza Bomeny people enrolled in the program produce the fashion pieces. Luiza says it is extremely satisfying and fulfilling to work in the project: “It is exciting to see how they get here insecure and to see the evolution and the positivity they will take to their whole life. I couldn't be working with fashion that didn't take into consideration social inclusion”.
On top of the social work being done, the products of “Grife Providencia” are also environmentally conscious. The designer Luiza Bomeny says that her creative process begins with a sole concept: sustainability. She tries to create an unique design by utilising fabrics or showcase pieces that have been donated by other business.
DESIGN TUN
Design Tun's story goes back to the beginning of the 1980's, when the Brazilian artist Lia Barreto started creating fashion accessories made from rubber and car tyres chambers.
In 2009 Lia started working with the also Brazilian artist Mauro Fuke and together they created the label Design Tun. From this union new ideas and fashion pieces were developed. The duo then began to design jewellery made utilising industrial rubber, latex and recycled rubber.
Since then, the designers are building Design Tun's story with according to them great sense of humour, utilising various graphics inspirations and several references to the Art history.
HELICONIA
Heliconia's fashion products are hand-made in Brazil. The company is specialized in shoes and accessories made from the exotic leather of Tilapia fish and frog. The company aims to use an environmentally friendly manner both in the art of tanning, and in order to obtain the raw material. Therefore the use of fish, which is a meat that is eaten in Brazil routinely and its skin is not used, becoming trash.
Primarily raised for their filets, these freshwater species thrive in commercial farms across the country. They also provide the raw material for our naturally-tanned tropical leather products. Concern for the environment motivates their high standards of sustainable production. While traditional leather tanning uses chrome or other metal salts, Heliconia's leather is exclusively made by vegetable processes, using synthetic and natural tannins from the barks of some trees. It is a cleaner and healthier process which produces leathers that are equally elastic and strong.
THIANA SANTOS
Thiana Santos believes that the designers have an important role in educating consumers. Through her craft she aims to re-means the utilisation of organic material and urban waste to the development of handmade jewellery, promoting an innovative and sophisticated result.The materials that she works with range from seeds, plastic bottles, deodorant packaging, among others.
The artist is always researching, experimenting, and utilising tools that will bring a unique result with perfect finishing. She also doesn't utilise nasty chemicals in the production of the fashion pieces; by doing this the product can still be recycled by a recycling company. As her products are developed through reutilisation, they are not recycled, but RECYCLABLE.
Flavia Amadeu is a Brazilian jewellery designer, researcher and design consultant. The focus of her work relies on supporting the work of local communities through collaboration on handcrafts and on the production of materials. Flavia's career as a designer spans more than fifteen years, during which she has developed many projects and taught in different design areas such as fashion, jewellery, graphic design, scenery and costume design.
Since 2004, Flavia Amadeu has been researching and designing with the coloured rubber called 'Semi-Artefact Rubber Sheet' (FSA), which is produced locally by rubber tapping communities in the Amazon Rainforest. She is currently a Lecturer at University of the Arts London and a PhD Researcher at the Centre for Sustainable Fashion, London College of Fashion, (UAL).
