After a decade working in the luxury fashion industry (most recently British Vogue), I realized that a regenerative revolution was urgently needed when it came to buying sustainable fashion. After visiting Premiere Vision, the go to fabric show for the fashion world, I came in contact with organic flax farmers that inspired me to make my collection with organic linen.
Why? Linen is made from flax and there is no waste in production as you use the whole plant for the fabric, compared to cotton where only the head is used and the rest discharged. It needs little irrigation - rainwater is sufficient for its growth compared to again; cotton that needs a lot of watering.
As Oramai, we also chose to only work with GOTS certified as it is the highest standard organic certificate and therefore our linen uses no pesticides. For the collection to be eligible for this label, the spinner, the weaver, as well as the manufacturer need to obtain the certificate and have it renewed annually. It is the best guarantee for an environmentally friendly and sustainable production process. The flax plant grows best in the north of France, in Belgium and in the Netherlands. This region’s rich soil and mild North Sea climate, where sun and rain alternate, are ideal for growing a fiber that is known worldwide for its quality. In 2020 about 150 000 hectares of flax was sown in this area, which represented 80% of the worldwide flax production.
Our farmers have been growing flax for centuries, and our linen is also refined and created in a carbon neutral factory located within a 1km radius from the origin of the flax plant. Not like the other brands like Reformation that states they indeed grow the linen in France but ship it to China to spin and finish…
When flax is harvested, it is pulled rather than cut. The customized machines pull two rows of flax from the soil simultaneously. The flax is laid on its side and placed on the field in parallel rows. After this process, the fields are covered with green flax. Mother Nature has a crucial role in the retting process where sun, dew and rain alternate. Micro-organisms dissolve the pectins and loosen the fibers. The soil also plays a part in the process. It contributes to the typical beige color of flax. That is the color that I used for my Capri dress, I think it is very chic, and all natural. After retting, the flax is picked up and tied together in large bales. After scutching machines break the woody stems of the plants to separate the fiber from the shives. The recovered shives are further processed into chipboards or animal bedding. The scutching tows are used for spinning coarser yarns or as raw material for the paper industry. Thousands of pins comb the flax until only the purest fiber remains. The remaining short fibers are separated from the longer fibers, the line. The line is used to produce the linen which is spun onto bobbins.
Did you also know it is the world’s oldest fabric? It’s also the oldest known fiber, and it was used to mummify since the ancient civilisations of Mesopotamia, Egypt and Greece. People have been making and wearing linen for forever because it’s very durable, versatile, and has natural cooling properties. This also makes it hypoallergenic as 100% natural and therefore also fully biodegradable. Did you know that clothes made of polyester take 300 years to biodegrade? Whilst linen meanwhile fully disintegrates in just a couple of months.
It’s also a very hardworking fabric, meaning that the more you wear it the softer it becomes and it will last for generations. With this in mind I design timeless sustainable fashion pieces that you can buy and wear today and in the future, maybe even one day - pass it down to your children. My mission with Oramai is; "I want Oramai to be a little world, and be able to add pieces that can come back in different variations. It would be something that is small and personal and uncommunicated, and gets passed on from customer to customer, creating a little community of people who appreciate the same values and have the same relationship with clothes and the environment.” The goal is not to grow huge, but to have a small business that can sustain itself and grow slowly, organically and on my own terms. Something that feels personal, manageable, focusing on nurturing the soil and the relationship with my existing loyal customer base and gradually expanding it.”
We think that lately linen has been unappreciated and replaced by cotton that comes with a high environmental footprint and therefore we would like to embrace linen, making it the go to fabric when people buy sustainable fashion and therefore our fabric choice for all Oramai’s creations.