GIA

GIA makes some of its garm­ents in its own work­shop, but also works with small fami­ly work­shops of artisans in Mon­te­vi­deo (Uru­gu­ay), who have a long tra­di­ti­on in the crea­ti­on of lea­ther access­ories and footwear. 

GIA’s crea­tors know and regu­lar­ly visit the­se fami­ly work­shops and main­tain a clo­se rela­ti­onship with them. So you can be sure that GIA’s garm­ents, access­ories and shoes are made under ethi­cal con­di­ti­ons. A lot of work goes into their crea­ti­ons, slow­ly made by real craftsmen. 

GIA’s pie­ces are main­ly made of cowhide and meri­no wool.

All the lea­ther comes from a tan­nery in Argen­ti­na. A fami­ly busi­ness that sin­ce its begin­nings has always prio­ri­ti­sed the qua­li­ty of the pro­duct and the craft­sman­ship neces­sa­ry to achie­ve excel­lence in the final product.

In addi­ti­on, one of the objec­ti­ves of this fami­ly busi­ness is to care for and be effi­ci­ent in the use of natu­ral resour­ces, and that is why it has one of the most modern and tech­no­lo­gi­cal efflu­ent tre­at­ment plants, mana­ged by a team of tech­ni­ci­ans spe­cia­li­sed in envi­ron­men­tal care, who work con­ti­nuous­ly to redu­ce the use of natu­ral resour­ces and impro­ve the qua­li­ty of the water used. They have the LWG (Lea­ther Working Group) cer­ti­fi­ca­ti­on, which reflects the com­pany’s com­mit­ment to the cus­to­mer and the environment. 

On the other hand, the wool comes from one of the main wool pro­du­cing and export­ing com­pa­nies in Uru­gu­ay. 100% of its wool is free of mule­sing, and it has seve­ral cer­ti­fi­ca­ti­ons such as the GOTS orga­nic cer­ti­fi­ca­ti­on by Eco­cert, the RWS (Respon­si­ble Wool Stan­dard) cer­ti­fi­ca­ti­on by Tex­ti­le Exch­an­ge and the NATI­VA cer­ti­fi­ca­ti­on by Char­geurs, which accre­dits that it is an envi­ron­men­tal­ly respon­si­ble company.

At COSH we are big fans of sin­gle-mate­ri­al garm­ents becau­se they make it easier to recy­cle them. In the case of GIA, many of its garm­ents are made from a sin­gle mate­ri­al, such as knit­wear made from 100% meri­no wool or boots made from 100% leather. 

At GIA they try to have a short pro­duc­tion chain, so they work with work­shops clo­se to their Mon­te­vi­deo work­shop, and sup­pli­ers from Uru­gu­ay. Howe­ver, their lea­ther sup­pli­er is from Argentina. 

GIA choo­ses wool pro­du­cers who tre­at their sheep bet­ter than nor­mal far­mers. Their meri­no wool, sourced from Uru­gu­ay, is free of mule­sing. Uru­gu­ay has ani­mal wel­fa­re stan­dards, open gra­zing, modern manage­ment tech­no­lo­gies and excel­lent gene­tics.

On the other hand, they use cowhide for the crea­ti­on of their access­ories and shoes.

They manu­fac­tu­re very few units of each model becau­se they belie­ve in slow fashion. A slow and sus­tainable manu­fac­tu­ring pro­cess.

They manu­fac­tu­re very con­scious­ly, taking care of every detail, as this is the essence of their brand: exclu­si­vi­ty, design and quality

GIA is a trans­pa­rent brand!

COSH! was able to talk to the foun­ders of the brand and we can assu­re you that GIA is a very trans­pa­rent brand. They have pro­vi­ded us with infor­ma­ti­on about whe­re they make their pro­ducts and the names of their sup­pli­ers.