Our Partners

 

We want to know the full story of our shirts. For the majority of our shirts we can trace back their journeys to the raw material. We are not 100% there as it is often difficult to trace back the origin of the raw materials such as cotton or linen. We are working on this to provide you with full traceability.

Find here a list of partners we are working with for the production of our shirts.

 

Shirt Manufacturing

We are working with two manufacturing partners. One of them is Marfel (Code F) in Portugal. The Felgueiras based, family-run company was founded in 1946 and is specialized in the fabrication of shirts. All of our casual shirts are made at Marfel. The approximately 250 employees, cut, measure and trim our shirts with under the highest quality standards.

Our second manufacturing Partner is Bontex from Bosnia-Herzegovina (Code M). The company is based in Maglaj and is specialised in manufacturing high-quality dress shirts. The city of Maglaj is a 1.5-hour drive away from Sarajevo, Bosnia’s capital city. Bontex was founded in 2005 and employs 220 people. It is certified according to SA8000. Many of our classic shirts are made at Bontex. Notably, all of our tailor-made shirts are made at Bontex.

Picture taken by René Grünenfelder at Marfel, one of our main shirtmaking partners.

 

Picture taken by René Grünenfelder at Bontex in Maglaj, Bosnia-Herzegovina.

 

Fabrics

We source our organic cotton and organic linen fabrics from the most renowned European weaving mills for shirt fabrics. Our main dying and weaving partner is based in the North of Portugal (Code P). The mill was founded in 1958 and employs around 550 people. The company spins, dyes yarns, weaves and finishes exquisite fabrics. It is certified according to the GOTS standards. All the fabrics for our casual shirts are made at our Portuguese weaving partner.

Our second dying and weaving partner is an Austrian weaving mill (Code F) based near the Swiss boarder in Vorarlberg. Founded in 1818 the company has almost 200 years of experience in textile production and employs more than 700 employees. The family owned company is one of the most important employers in the area and has been investing high amounts into the local production site as well as the use of sustainable energies and is certified according to the bluesign and GOTS standard.

Quality check at our Portuguese Weaving Partner (taken by René Grünenfelder).


View into the fabric production of our Austrian weaving partner.

 

Yarns

We advise our weaving mills to source organic cotton or organic linen yarns. They buy these yarns from various spinning mills on the market. All of them are certified according to the GOTS standard.

One of the spinning mills that provides our weaving partners with organic cotton and organic linen yarns is Mundifios (Code Q) based in North Portugal. Today Mundifios spins mainly organic yarns from cotton, linen or wool in Portugal but also trades with all kind of conventional yarns in various yarn qualities. Amongst others, Mundifios is certified according to our GOTS standard.

Another yarn supplier is Filasa (Code B) in Guimaraes, Portugal. The company takes sustainability and their responsibility seriously. They invest and research in order to reduce the use of water in the dying process. It is certified according to the GOTS and oeko-Tex standard.

Amongst others, the yarns used for our Oxford shirts were spun by Narteks (Code H), a family-owned spinning mill in Turkey. The company is highly specialised and has a year-long experience in the processing of cotton. It is also certified according to the GOTS standard.

The yarns made from the fairly traded organic cotton sourced from the bioRe® projects in Tansania and India are spun by Eurotex (Code K) in Kolhapur in the state of Maharashtra, India. Kohlapur is situated on the route from Goa to Pune and Mumbai and has around 550'000 inhabitants. Eurotex was founded in 1989 and employs around 1’000 people. It is certified according to the SA8000 and GOTS standard.


René Grünenfelder and owner Paulo Fernandes of Mundifios.

 

Yarn spinning at Eurotex, Kohlapur, India (picture taken by René Grünenfelder).

 

 Raw Materials

Whenever possible we integrate organic cotton from the bioRe® projects in Tanzania and India into the manufacturing of our fabrics. The integration of these cotton sources guarantee us full traceability of our cotton shirts. bioRe® India (Code R) and bioRe® Tanzania (Code Z) are organisations founded by the Swiss yarn trader Remei AG based in Rotkreuz. Both organisations buy organic cotton from 4'000 (India) and 2'000 (Tanzania) small-scale farmers.

The bioRe® organisations instruct farmers in the cultivation of organic cotton, provide them with GMO-free cotton seeds, guarantee the purchase of their harvest and provide them with a 15% premium (based on average 5 years market price). The cotton sourced from these organisations are cultivated, picked and ginned according to the GOTS standard. Organic cotton grown with the bioRe® organisations can be found in many of our Classic Shirts and in our Flannel Shirts.

In other cases our organic cotton is sourced from other organic cotton projects in Turkey and India. Unless the cotton is sourced from the bioRe® organisations, it is still hard to receive information on the exact origins of the cotton raw materials used to spin the yarns used by our weaving partners. We are working on this leak and try to establish relationships with more transparent yarn traders.

 

One of the Indian cotton farmers supplying bioRe® India with organic cotton (picture taken by René Grünenfelder).

Michael Zäch and René Grünenfelder together with the manager of the ginning mill in India where the organic cotton from bioRe® India is ginned.