LaSalle

LaSalle offers you the most ico­nic luxu­ry essen­ti­als for women. The brand was foun­ded in 1991 and repres­ents tim­e­l­ess and effort­less sophisti­ca­ti­on. In 2010 they star­ted focu­sing on sus­taina­bi­li­ty, espe­ci­al­ly when sel­ec­ting fabrics and sup­pli­ers. LaSalle has always made clo­thes you can love and wear again and again. That’s why qua­li­ty and com­fort are very important to the brand.

The design takes place in Ams­ter­dam, with a focus on con­tem­po­ra­ry style. Their coll­ec­tion is made almost exclu­si­ve­ly in Euro­pe, to ensu­re ethi­cal working con­di­ti­ons. Curious about the full sus­taina­bi­li­ty sto­ry of LaSalle? Then plea­se con­ti­nue reading.

Ethics & Supply chain

As men­tio­ned abo­ve, the pro­duc­tion of LaSalle is almost exclu­si­ve­ly based in Euro­pe, in Ita­ly, Pol­and and Por­tu­gal to be spe­ci­fic. This isn’t only bene­fi­ci­al becau­se of the working con­di­ti­ons regu­la­ted by EU-laws, but also for crea­ting a short sup­p­ly chain and for redu­cing their car­bon foot­print. LaSalle sta­tes most of their items only pass through two dif­fe­rent count­ries. Only their lea­ther jackets are made (chro­me-free) in India. 

Many of their fabric sup­pli­ers also com­ply with the various eco-cer­ti­fi­ca­ti­on gui­de­lines, some of which include PEF (Pro­duct Envi­ron­men­tal Foot­print), ISO 14001 (for an envi­ron­men­tal manage­ment sys­tem), FSC (Forest Ste­ward­ship Coun­cil), and the EU Eco­la­bel (label of envi­ron­men­tal excellence). 

Bes­i­des, most of the sup­pli­ers are small, fami­ly owned busi­nesses. LaSalle has long-term rela­ti­onships with them and visits them regu­lar­ly. They’re seen as an essen­ti­al part of the LaSalle team. The­r­e­fo­re they recei­ve fair wages, good working con­di­ti­ons and are trea­ted with respect. 

Materials

LaSalle sel­ects its natu­ral fabrics careful­ly. They always choo­se biode­gra­da­ble mate­ri­als over syn­the­tic ones, as they ack­now­ledge the fashion indus­try is respon­si­ble for micro­pla­s­tic pol­lu­ti­on. To illus­tra­te this, 95% of the coll­ec­tion is based on natu­ral mate­ri­als like cot­ton, wool and vis­co­se. They only use syn­the­tics such as poly­es­ter and poly­ami­de when neces­sa­ry e.g. for plea­ting or com­fort. The poly­ami­de that is used is made in cer­ti­fied and soci­al­ly respon­si­ble pro­ces­ses in China. 

The mate­ri­als you do find a lot in LaSalle’s coll­ec­tions are cot­ton, linen, vis­co­se, Ten­cel, silk and dif­fe­rent types of wool. They’re tran­si­tio­ning towards using more cer­ti­fied mate­ri­als such as Oeko-Tex cer­ti­fied fabrics, GOTS cer­ti­fied orga­nic cot­ton, and Ten­cel which are pro­du­ced in an eco-fri­end­ly way. Their mis­si­on is to have 70% of their clot­hing made from fabrics and yarns that are fri­end­ly to the envi­ron­ment by 2025. So they’re not at this stage yet. 

Animal Welfare

LaSalle does use dif­fe­rent types of ani­mal-deri­ved mate­ri­als. The silk is spun from silkworm cocoons, the cash­me­re and mohair from goats wool, the recy­cled and pure vir­gin wool from sheep’s wool and the alpa­ca wool from alpa­cas. The woo­len items are all Ita­li­an blends and no ani­mals are being kil­led for the pro­duc­tion. Howe­ver the living con­di­ti­ons of the ani­mals remain unknown. 

The brand also sells lea­ther jackets made out of lamb’s lea­ther, the­se are made in India. Of cour­se in order to make the­se, ani­mals need to be slaughtered. 

Circular Economy

All clo­thes desi­gned by LaSalle are made to last so you can keep them in your clo­set for a long time. After get­ting the most wear out of them, the clot­hing made of 100% natu­ral mate­ri­als can biode­gra­de in natu­re so they won’t con­tri­bu­te to (pla­s­tic) pol­lu­ti­on in land­fills. Bes­i­des, most vis­co­se and cot­ton garm­ents are recy­clable too. In knit­wear it’s bene­fi­ci­al to blend fibers from the same fiber base so they’re recy­clable too. Only the garm­ents made from natu­ral fibers mixed with a hig­her per­cen­ta­ge of syn­the­tic fibers can be pro­ble­ma­tic for the end of life stage. 

Slow Fashion

LaSalle also focu­ses on dura­ble design that goes bey­ond trends and gives you a tim­e­l­ess and sophisti­ca­ted look. Con­tem­po­ra­ry and clas­sic, for every woman. This way you can wear your high qua­li­ty essen­ti­als for years while still loo­king gre­at here and now!

In clot­hing items like pants and fit­ted shirts, there’s often a per­cen­ta­ge of elas­t­a­ne added to increase movea­bi­li­ty. Becau­se of this, recy­cling beco­mes more dif­fi­cult and the­se pie­ces aren’t biode­gra­da­ble, but it can increase lon­ge­vi­ty as com­fort and qua­li­ty are always on top of LaSalle’s priorities.

LaSalle is also very mindful in terms of mini­mi­zing was­te throug­hout the design and pro­duc­tion process.

LaSalle con­tri­bu­tes to a good cau­se by dona­ting excess stock to Dress for Suc­cess. This is a not-for-pro­fit orga­niza­ti­on that empowers women to achie­ve eco­no­mic inde­pen­dence by pro­vi­ding a net­work of sup­port, pro­fes­sio­nal atti­re and the deve­lo­p­ment tools to help women thri­ve in work and in life.