Our radical choice: 100% biodegradable and pure materials

Why we at Ida&Volta only work with 100% biodegradable and pure materials

Help, my sweater is alive!

As any wool lover will be able to confirm, when you are dealing with a 100% woolen item, you will be able to tell. It’s not quite an extra pet, but it does require just that bit more love and attention than synthetics-blended garments. 

Why is that?

 Wool is an organic fibre that aims at insulating the animal it used to coat, by providing it with warmth, repelling rain (test: pour a bit of water over a pure wool sweater or fabric. It just glides off without penetrating the fabric) and keeping it fresh (yes,fresh. Wool helps regulate your body temp). 

How come we are not used to this anymore?

Over the past decades, wool has been mixed with polyesters in order to make it, well.. less alive. This was a genius solution to many problems: It’s easier in maintenance, you can toss it in the washing machine together with your towels, synthetics “prickle” less, and they are less susceptible to the effects of heat and moisture.

Another big one: elastic synthetic fibers are added! Did you know that garments containing anywhere below 5% elastane do not have to report this on their label? They sell the sweater as 100% wool, when that is not the case. This means that your garment automatically bounces back into its original shape when you’ve stretched it.

Although at the time these were canny solutions, by now we are cleary seeing the consequences. At Ida&Volta we think it’s time to re-evaluate, and so we commit ourselves to making choices that we are comfortable with.

For now, this means we make the radical choice to only work with 100% biodegradable and pure materials.

However, it is a relatively new and fast-evolving industry. We have been doing research into recycling and will be doing this for a while, as there is much (contradictory) information out there. As we learn more, we will keep you informed on what we find out and how we adapt our designs to the best of our knowledge.

All garments by Ida&Volta are 100% natural. Yarn, sewing thread, labels, finishings, no detail is overlooked.

Sources

https://www.cooksongold.com/Ecosilver/
https://www.cooksongold.com/home/static.jsp?page=quality-health-safety-environmental-policy
https://aquilajewellery.com/blogs/our-boho-journal/7-interesting-things-you-need-to-know-about-recycled-sterling-silver
https://theecologist.org/2009/mar/01/can-silver-ever-be-ethical