Ethical Production

Ethical Production

It’s our conviction that anyone has the right to enjoy his/her work and must be correctly paid for it. We believe that structural change can only happen by supporting the people who stand at the very beginning of the process.  Thus, Ida & Volta chooses suppliers who are transparent about the chain of production and we are very critical when it comes to labour conditions and the remuneration of farmers and textile workers.

A large part of the process is completely under our own control : 
design, patterning , the making of prototypes and a great deal of the needle-work is done by ourselves in our studio. De rest of our production  is being outsourced to people we know and trust.

We have worked with “De Vaartkapoen”, a sheltered workplace in Brussels, Belgium. Currently part of our production is also being done in Portugal.

Berta Kassai

Berta was born in Esztergomna city in the North of Hungary. Her family ran a bookbinding business and she learnt the trade from them. Since her training was only during weekends, she decided to spend the weekdays brushing up on her hobby, which was sewing. She signed up for a 2 year course in dressmaking, finished first of her class, and ended up winning several student fashion shows with her work.

After she completed her studies, Berta moved to London, where she worked for 7 years in all branches of the sewing business. She did production for menswear brands, sampling, upholstery, production for smaller and bigger designers and did alteration work too.  These years of varied experience make her into a very well-rounded seamstress with a good insight in many aspects of the textile branch. A love for Portugal and the dream of living off-grid brought her to Central Portugal 8 years ago, where she still lives in the mountains. She is self-employed and focuses her time on her own hat brand, Scrappy Kids, as well as sampling and production for Ida&Volta. Berta works from a small studio that she has set up in her house and is happy to live a free life, as she herself put it beautifully 🙂

Ida&Volta chose to work with Berta because she has an outstanding quality of finish and a good eye for detail. Different from working with factories, working with a self-employed seamstress, offers us the possibility to tap into her knowhow, have her advice and think together on how to best finish things. Berta is quick to think on her feet and not afraid to speak her mind, and so we can learn from her skill as we improve samples and sewing techniques together.


Produção ética

Todos os trabalhadores têm o direito de encontrar satisfação no seu trabalho e de ser remunerados corretamente. Acreditamos que a mudança estrutural começa com o apoio às pessoas que estão na base do processo de produção. Escolhemos fornecedores que são transparantes e somos críticos em relação às condições de trabalho e remuneração justa dos agricultores e trabalhadores nas fábricas de textil. Temos o restante do processo inteiramente sob nosso controle: o processo estilístico, o desenho de padrões e a confecção de protótipos.

Nós mesmos fazemos grande parte da costura. Terceirizamos o restante para a oficina social do Centro Comunitário ‘De Vaartkapoen’ em Molenbeek-Bruxelas, onde vamos frequentemente e mantemos um bom contato com as pessoas que costuram nossas roupas. Em cada peça de roupa indicamos quem a confeccionou.