We care about the impact that our clothes have on the environment, not because it is trendy nor the zeitgeist, but because we genuinely believe responsibility starts with the individual. Here are a few examples of how our commitment to sustainability is seen in our clothes.
We design clothes to be durable. The longer they last, the longer they will be worn, increasing the time between replacements. Making clothes to last reduces the amount of cloth and resources required to produce a replacement.
We mainly make bespoke clothing to order, this allows the client to get exactly what he wants, which will fulfil his requirements better, and he will wear them longer. We only produce what is required, eliminating unnecessary waste.
When the garments are nearing the end of their lifecycle, we try to repair or repurpose garments. If that is not possible, we donate them to charities to be worn again or to technical colleges where they can learn how garments are put together. It also helps us analyse the areas of stress and wear and make better garments for the client in the future.
When we do make ready to wear items, we keep our production runs small and try to design items that are appealing and timeless. We avoid things that will worn for just one season and create items that will become cherished wardrobe staples.
We do not over produce in the Far East and have our garments burnt or disposed of in landfills at the end of the season, like many so called luxury labels. Nor do we try and dupe consumers by creating outlet stores that carry “discounted” stock that never appeared at their regular price stores. We prefer to produce less, but better.
All our garments and fabrics are made in Austria, England, Italy, Portugal, Scotland and Switzerland, where fair working wages, and strict environmental standards are upheld. We use the best fabrics possible, which not only make for better garments, but also more durable garments.
We try to use long lasting and renewable trims and avoid the use of plastic and polyester wherever possible. We use corozo (also known as vegetable ivory in German) for our jacket buttons. This form of nut, makes strong and environmentally sustainable buttons. On close inspection one can see striations like wood grain on the buttons. We also use replenishable, farmed, mother of pearl buttons, metal buckles that are refinished and reused, and metal clips where possible instead of plastic.
We use as few labels as possible in our garments, and they have to fulfil an exact purpose, if not two. We use our neck labels not just to identify our brand, but also as a loop to hang the garment on a hook. Our pentagonal gussets on the side seam of our shirts are not there for decorative purposes, but to reinforce the side seams and to this day, twenty years on, we have not had a single failure of a shirt there.
We try and speak with our online store clients before we send orders half way around the world, to make sure the client is getting what he expects and to reduce our return rate. We believe the environmental impact of shipping garments back and forth across the world needlessly is wasteful.
Our approach is the very opposite of fast fashion and we embody the three Rs (reduce, reuse, recycle) in as many ways as we can. This means that you know that when you buy a garment from Udeshi, you’re also doing your bit for the planet and will have a perfectly fitted item of clothing, that you will love to wear for many, many years. One of our long-standing clients complains that he cannot buy more from us because our clothing lasts so long, that he still hasn’t worn out what he has. We think that’s a good problem to have!
Simply reducing the weight of the fabric as much as possible, by making the garment in the thinnest and lightest fabric possible – a bit cold in winter, doesn’t change the fundamental problem of the jacket sitting on the shoulders. One of the few times Oscar’s master’s degree in philosophy has a practical application: get the jacket to sit somewhere else – in our case, the collarbone. Our bespoke cutter who has half a century of cutting experience, helped develop this system with Oscar, and this subtle but crucial change, makes all the difference. We apply this principle to all our sleeved garments. We create razor sharp Savile Row silhouettes, but with an unparalleled level of comfort. Our garments made of nothing but fabric, thread and buttons are what we call our unstructured tailoring. Photograph of a bespoke Shetland tweed jacket and waistcoat completely unlined without canvas and lining.
Our garments with canvas and the option of shoulder pads are our structured tailoring, soft tailoring would probably be a more accurate description. A lot of our clients have commented that our jackets are like wearing pyjamas - you don’t feel you are wearing a jacket. When we use canvas and shoulder pads, we use the thinnest and lightest pads possible and the lightest possible canvases for the cloth and routinely use tropical weight canvas that weighs as much as paper for soft cashmere winter coats. We dispense with domette – the felt in the chest that we find makes a jacket feel thick and substantial and traps the heat, by finishing the canvas in a special way from our French trained baste maker. She is responsible for putting the bespoke jackets together for their fittings. She is very exacting and slow, but every stitch is accurate and done with a light hand, and only when she is satisfied, does she hand over the jacket for a fitting. She even keeps the heir to a certain throne, and a sultan waiting, because it has to be right. Photograph of a bespoke double face double brushed Italian cashmere peacoat with canvas but no shoulder pads and no lining.