DESIGN
a circular approachDesign doesn’t just mean creating something beautiful on paper and then turning it into reality, here at Woodcabin it starts much earlier and doesn’t end when your order arrives at your doorstep. Let me show you what a circular approach to design means and which goals I’m working towards!
Circular Design
Circular design accounts for every life stage of the product created, not just the production. This creates a circlar economy that reduces waste by making use of already existing materials.
Here at Woodcabin the process begins with finding materials destined for landfill and creating new garments out of them. They go straight from the sewing table to your doorstep, ready to live a full life. To make this life as long as possible, Woodcabin offers a free repair service for smalller rips and tears. Finally, once your garment has reached the end of its life cycle, you can send it back in, so something new can be made out of it – and you get a gift voucher for it too!
In short: All clothes are made from upcycled materials and with longevity in mind. That means I’m repairing them for free should they rip and if you’re done with them, you can send them back in to be upcycled. Reducing textile waste, little by little.
What Woodcabin does & aims for
The material is always the starting point, finding high-quality fabrics destined for landfill and then finding their ideal purpose. I always make sure that as little as possible of the orginal garment or fabric is wasted and use it in it’s entirety if I can. If I can’t, most fabric scraps are used for other projects. Since 2022 I have stopped discarding fabric scraps entirely and will from now on even use the tiniest pieces, for example as filling for pillows or quilts. If you want to know more about Woodcabin’s material guidelines, read on, the next page has you covered.
The circular mindset also goes into the design of the clothes themselves. They are made to be versatile and durable, so you can enjoy them for as long as possible. Since 2022, all new pieces will also be designed with zero-waste patterns, making use of all the fabric available and reducing textile waste even more. I’m also in the process of translating exising patterns to zero-waste ones, so I can keep making the pieces that you love. As of now, most pieces are designed to be accessible for people with disabilities as well and I’m continuously working on expanding my size range and making all pieces fully accessible. To me, inclusivity is part of a sustainable mindset and I want Woodcabin to reflect that.
I know that adventuring can be a little rough-and-tumble sometimes, but don’t worry, I got your back if you end up with a hole in your clothes. Woodcabin is offering a life-long free repair service! Just send in your garment and I’ll take care of the rest. You only pay for shipping, and you don’t even need to keep the receipt to be eligible. Extensive damage is not included in this offer, but for a small fee to cover my costs, I will gladly mend it for you. I’m also working on an instructional page for you to fix small damages yourself, so you can apply it to other pieces in your wardrobe too and extend their life period.
If your item has reached the end of its life, you can send it back to me in return for a 25€ gift voucher for the Woodcabin etsy shop. That way, it will become something new entirely and can be loved again by someone else. And the process starts all over again.
The Upcycling Workshops I have been organizing since Autumn 2021 also touch on the idea of circular design, working with local businesses to reduce their waste and at the same time educate people, and especially the younger generation, about the waste problem and offering creative solutions.