This is the second of 2 connected articles, and look at how cork is innovatively used in fashion and accessories as a consequence of the Portuguese cork industry’s challenges. The first post was a general introduction to the Portuguese cork industry and the connections with sustainability.
The trouble with ‘natural’ materials in the current fashion climate is both: very simple, yet very complex. Simple in what the concrete challenges are: scalability, quality, suitability to closing the loop, availability, and depletion of natural resources by scaling up. It goes without saying that the solutions are a slight bit more complex to say the least.
Personal ethics such as is e.g. the case for vegans and vegetarians – who choose to avoid leather at all cost for animal welfare reasons, but end up having to replace it by environmentally speaking more obnoxious materials (see first post for details) – make things even more complicated. Now, this article isn’t about ethics, and there are good reasons to avoid leather, specifically if it is not traceable. Not only for animal welfare reasons, but also for environmental reasons, e.g. the murky waters of the tanning process, or deforestation of the Amazon for cattle breeding.
The principle point though is: How do you find alternatives to current natural materials – including leather – from existing resources, given that many of us have a preference for natural materials? And more: How many of the theoretically available alternatives not only scale fairly well both, in terms of quantity, but also quality? The answer is: few do.
Flax fibres are probably among the few that have the potential to develop into something more than they are today. And then there is cork. An improbable candidate, but the industry’s development in the past 30 years has resulted in a vast range of fashion-suitable materials to be available to us: from fabrics – for high fashion, to more elastic cloth, upholstery and interior decoration fabrics – to accessories, the current state-of-the-art in cork-technology is surprising. And very little known.
Interesting also from a European perspective: the heart of this development is geographically very close (Portugal, and Sardinia in Italy). Not only does this mean a reduced carbon footprint for shipping, but the use of a material that by its very nature absorbs CO2 as it grows. In addition, it being an industry that is located in economically marginalised areas of Europe, the positive social impacts cannot be ignored either.
While the cork industry is dominant in some areas of Portugal (and Sardinia), and the country exports 80% of all added value cork products produced world wide, only a handful of manufacturers have the knowledge and skill to produce the quality needed for the world fashion markets. And of these only half are vertically integrated, and process the cork from bark to finished product.
Who are they?
- Pelcor is the fashion brand name of Novacortiça, a third generation family business which originally specialised in champaign cork stoppers. The brand was founded in 2003, and Sandra Correira – the current CEO of the company – was in 2011 elected as the the most distinct female entrepreneur by the European Parliament and the European Council of Women Entrepreneurs.
It was Pelcor who produced Luís Buchinho’s vegan Butterfly handbag pictured above. The brand is now often presented at the forefront of Portugal’s image building abroad, and their products are even stocked at the New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMa). - Artelusa is the accessories brand of Italtempo, a research and marketing company specialising in products for museums and large coroporate clients. Now a second generation family business, Artelusa was launched in 2000 in the context of the World Exhibition in Hanover. Where Pelcor is strong in its profile outside of Portugal, Artelusa is the brand predominantly found within Portugal. Their products are usually found in high end artisanal souvenir shops and designer boutiques in cities such as Porto, Faro, Lisbon, but also across major cities in Spain.
Beyond accessories and interior decoration items, they also produce typical corporate merchandising products such as stationary.
Their newest development is a base material that combines fennel and cork, and is suitable to small scale accessories such as coin purses. - Dona Cortiça (Facebook login required) is a new brand launched very specifically with the idea to promote the Algarve (Protual’s most southern region) as quality production destination of cork products. And this with good reason: While the majority of cork forest are found in Southern Portugal, very little of the country’s cork industry is, too. Most factories and companies base themselves in or around either Lisbon or Porto. Dona Cortiça is part of a very recent trend whereby companies set up factories and head quarters close/er to where their material grows.
- Cork Design is the accessories and textile brand of Cork Art, a family-owned company that originally specialised in innovative flooring made from cork. In the course of their product development they discovered that they could produce cloth suitable to fashion and accessories, but with the qualities of the native cork. Cork Design is the commercial result of said development.
- Comcortiça is again a family business, owned by two sisters, with the idea of innovating the cork industry at its heart, create local employment and make a highly sustainable material more known and popular. Their main product lines are accessories (primarily bags, purses, wallets). They primarily sell across Portugal in high-end hotel shops and designer boutiques.
- Cork & Co is a small Lisbon designer label that produces a small luxury range of cork accessories, including silver-with-cork jewellery. With their own store in the capital, they are also able to work by appointment on one off, personalised items.
- Corky Craft, finally, capitalises primarily on the ‘Made in Portugal’ credentials, and as such offers both, cork accessories as well as products made from leather. In both cases their primary focus is on using the traditional skills and product expertise that exists in the country. This brand is at the bottom of the list for a reason: While all the others offer some degree of detail about their sustainability credentials and how they produce, on Corky Craft’s website there is zero such information available. Their name is listed here hence only for the sake of completeness.
Further information:
– Portuguese Cork Association APCOR
– PDF booklet about eco and sustainability credentials of cork (by APCOR).
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This is the second of 2 connected articles, and look at how cork is innovatively used in fashion and accessories as a consequence of the Portuguese cork industry’s challenges. The first post was a general introduction to the Portuguese cork industry and the connections with sustainability.
