Owl

Owl works from the emble­ma­tic neigh­bour­hood of Poblenou, Bar­ce­lo­na. In its own work­shop, loca­ted in an old bak­ery dating back to the ear­ly 20^th cen­tu­ry, is whe­re the bran­d’s ide­as are born. 

In addi­ti­on, ano­ther of Owl’s pre­mi­ses is to be equi­ta­ble, so that socie­ty is also a bene­fi­ci­a­ry, not just the market.

They are invol­ved in crea­ting a more balan­ced socie­ty, which is why they col­la­bo­ra­te with social work­shops in Bar­ce­lo­na, such as the Emi­li Papi­rer Work­shop and Sewing School of the Rou­re Foun­da­ti­on or the Diom­coop coope­ra­ti­ve, which car­ry out gre­at and important social work. The inco­me gene­ra­ted is main­ly used to train and inte­gra­te peo­p­le wit­hout resour­ces into socie­ty and the labour market.

Sin­ce its begin­nings with under­wear, Owl has been com­mit­ted to biode­gra­da­ble, eco­lo­gi­cal and com­for­ta­ble materials. 

That is why they work with dif­fe­rent pro­jects and sup­pli­ers of cot­ton fabrics:

• GOTS® and OCC­GUA­RAN­TEE® cer­ti­fied orga­nic undy­ed cot­ton, whe­re the three colours, raw, earth and green, come direct­ly from the cot­ton plant, wit­hout dyes or blea­ching chemicals.

• Orga­nic cot­ton with elas­t­a­ne, pro­du­ced in a total­ly ver­ti­cal com­pa­ny, they con­trol from the purcha­se of raw mate­ri­al to the finis­hing and colour of the final fabric. Cer­ti­fied by Re-EcoTex­ti­les Cotex­mo Orga­nic® and Stan­dard 100 by OEKO-TEX®.

• Sus­tainable cot­ton wit­hout inte­gra­ted plan­ta­ti­on cer­ti­fi­ca­ti­on, the only cot­ton, spun and pro­du­ced enti­re­ly in Spain. This fabric is the result of coope­ra­ti­ve work, reco­ve­ring and reva­luing the fields of Anda­lu­sia in the cot­ton plan­ta­ti­on, pas­sing through the Cata­lan tex­ti­le indus­try until it rea­ches you.

On the other hand, some of their garm­ents are also made with recy­cled fabrics, as in their outer­wear, whe­re they use SEA­QUAL® fib­re, made from PET pla­s­tic bot­t­les coll­ec­ted from the sea, and linings made from 50% cot­ton and 50% recy­cled poly­es­ter, cer­ti­fied by Re-EcoTex­ti­les Cotex­mo Recy­cled and Stan­dard 100 by OEKO-TEX® .

Owl belie­ves that reu­sing exis­ting mate­ri­als is a respon­si­bi­li­ty. Tha­t’s why they reu­se dis­card­ed para­gli­ders from an air­craft fabric pro­du­cer, con­ver­ting them into jackets and outer­wear. Thus, they pre­vent this nylon mate­ri­al from ending up in the bin – taking up to 500 years to decom­po­se – with upcy­cling, this mate­ri­al is reu­sed, giving it a new and hig­her value, being more envi­ron­men­tal­ly fri­end­ly and sus­tainable than crea­ting a new one.

Para­gli­ders offer us a fabric with very inte­res­t­ing tech­ni­cal cha­rac­te­ristics: it is a nylon fabric, resistant and light, capa­ble of pro­tec­ting us from the wind and the first drops of rain. A very ver­sa­ti­le, recy­clable and high­ly dura­ble fabric.

As each para­gli­der is dif­fe­rent and not all parts are the same, nor do they have the same colour, they cut the garm­ents one by one, obtai­ning limi­t­ed edi­ti­ons, unre­peata­ble and of gre­at eco­lo­gi­cal value.

In Owl they work and pro­du­ce some of their garm­ents local­ly from the city of Barcelona.

Some of their sup­pli­ers and gar­ment work­shops are less than 100 kilo­me­t­res away, from their own gar­ment work­shop in Poblenou (Bar­ce­lo­na) to loca­ti­ons such as Mat­aró (Mares­me) or La Cel­lera (La Sel­va), thus signi­fi­cant­ly redu­cing the car­bon foot­print deri­ved from trans­port and sup­p­ly of materials.

Howe­ver, some of their garm­ents such as sweat­shirts, T‑shirts and trou­sers come from a sup­pli­er that manu­fac­tures in Ban­gla­desh. The­se garm­ents are then cus­to­mi­sed local­ly in Barcelona.

Owl is a vegan brand! It has not used or har­med any ani­mals direct­ly or indi­rect­ly in its manu­fac­tu­ring pro­cess.

In addi­ti­on, their T‑shirts, sweat­shirts and jog­ger trou­sers car­ry the PETA Appro­ved Vegan seal, which gua­ran­tees that they con­tain no ani­mal-deri­ved materials.

Owl is a brand with a slow fashion phi­lo­so­phy. Owl thinks about the best way to gene­ra­te the mini­mum was­te in the crea­ti­on of their garm­ents and pro­duc­tions, so they try not to pro­du­ce more than neces­sa­ry and keep the remai­ning mate­ri­als to stu­dy the best way to reu­se and/​or recy­cle them, to gene­ra­te zero was­te.

Their sales with the ​“On Demand” ser­vice help to only pro­du­ce what is sold, and gene­ra­te mini­mum was­te, as well as redu­cing CO2 foot­print emis­si­ons.

Curr­ent­ly, with the remains of their upcy­cling garm­ents (nylon fabric from gli­ders), they are inves­ti­ga­ting how to trans­form the­se lef­to­vers into tex­ti­le pad­ding, both for the home (cushion pad­ding) and for fashion (quil­ting for jackets), and thus extend the use of the life of the materials.

Owl is a trans­pa­rent brand!

COSH! was able to talk to the foun­der of the brand and we can assu­re you that Owl is a very trans­pa­rent brand.

He gave us infor­ma­ti­on about whe­re they make their pro­ducts, the names of their sup­pli­ers and even show­ed us some cer­ti­fi­ca­tes.