Loop.a life

Loop.a life works local­ly as much as pos­si­ble and is also a proud mem­ber of Ams­ter­dam Made. The coll­ec­tions are desi­gned in their Ams­ter­dam office. The brand also col­la­bo­ra­tes with Social Enter­pri­se NL. This is an orga­niza­ti­on that sup­ports com­pa­nies to enga­ge in social entre­pre­neur­ship. As a result, seve­ral pro­ces­ses in the pro­duc­tion of the Loop.a life coll­ec­tion are car­ri­ed out by peo­p­le with a distance to the labour mar­ket.

Much of the pro­duc­tion takes place in the Net­her­lands. For exam­p­le, tex­ti­le coll­ec­tion, sort­ing and clea­ning are done by local part­ners. The pro­ducts are desi­gned in Ams­ter­dam and also part­ly knit­ted in the Net­her­lands.

All other pro­duc­tion part­ners are also loca­ted in Euro­pe. The clo­thes are mecha­ni­cal­ly recy­cled in Sou­thern Euro­pe befo­re being spun in France and Ita­ly. Final­ly, Loop.a life col­la­bo­ra­tes with Dutch and Por­tu­gue­se manu­fac­tu­r­ers to knit the garm­ents.

Loop.a life also col­la­bo­ra­tes with other local part­ners. In a col­la­bo­ra­ti­on with it Erfskip, the brand desi­gned the Frys­ke jum­per in honour of Lee­u­war­den Cul­tu­re Capi­tal 2018. Tog­e­ther with Ensche­de Textiel­stad, the brand is explo­ring the pos­si­bi­li­ty of adding recy­cled, woven pro­ducts to its collection.

Only a small pro­por­ti­on of all clot­hing and tex­ti­le was­te is recy­cled into new clo­thes. Loop.a life wants to chan­ge this and has deve­lo­ped an inno­va­ti­ve recy­cling and pro­duc­tion pro­cess for post-con­su­mer clot­hing was­te. As a result, the Loop.a life coll­ec­tion con­sists of no less than 65% recy­cled clot­hing. Much of this comes from local­ly coll­ec­ted clot­hing.

Loop.a life coope­ra­tes with Dutch coll­ec­tion part­ners to coll­ect dis­card­ed clot­hing. The­se clo­thes are clea­ned by vol­un­teers, remo­ving all but­tons and zips are cut out of the clo­thes. Loop.a life uses a mecha­ni­cal recy­cling pro­cess that shreds the clo­thes into fibres. With this, new yarns can be spun to make clo­thes. In this pro­cess, the garm­ents are also sor­ted by colour, this way colours can be com­po­sed and the new mate­ri­al does not have to be dyed.

To redu­ce their own pro­duc­tion was­te, Loop.a life uses a ful­ly fashio­ned knit­ting pro­cess. This means that each com­po­nent is machi­ne-knit­ted and sewn tog­e­ther in its enti­re­ty.

To impro­ve the qua­li­ty of their pro­ducts, Loop.a life mixes other mate­ri­als with the recy­cled fibres. This makes for stron­ger yarns and pro­longs the life of the pro­ducts.

To do so, the brand uses recy­cled poly­es­ter from PET bot­t­les and recy­cled poly­ami­de, among others. While the­se mate­ri­als are recy­cled, they are still not enti­re­ly sus­tainable due to their syn­the­tic com­po­si­ti­on.

In addi­ti­on, Loop.a life also uses more natu­ral mate­ri­als in their designs. The Luxu­ry Knits coll­ec­tion, for exam­p­le, uses alpa­ca wool. This gives the jum­pers a soft and luxu­rious feel. The brand also uses lyo­cell in their coll­ec­tions. This is a vis­co­se made from the wood pulp of euca­lyp­tus trees.

Loop.a life sets the exam­p­le in cir­cu­la­ri­ty. They use dis­card­ed clo­thes as raw mate­ri­als for their coll­ec­tions. You can also bring in your own clo­thes to Loop.a life. The brand works with local tex­ti­le sor­ters to sort non-reusable clo­thes for recy­cling.

Becau­se recy­cled fibres have a lower qua­li­ty, it is neces­sa­ry to com­bi­ne with a new raw mate­ri­al. Unfort­u­na­te­ly, the addi­ti­on of syn­the­tic mate­ri­als makes the clo­thes more dif­fi­cult to recy­cle after use. As this is main­ly the case with woven clo­thes, Loop.a life’s knit­ted jum­pers are pos­si­ble to recycle.

Loop.a life has a short sup­p­ly chain as the brand only works with Euro­pean pro­du­cers. Much of it even takes place in the Net­her­lands its­elf!

The clo­thes are coll­ec­ted in the Net­her­lands, sor­ted and clea­ned by vol­un­teers. It is then ground into fibres and spun in Sou­thern Euro­pe. Some of the knit­ting of the clo­thes them­sel­ves also takes place in Por­tu­gal. Smal­ler runs are pro­du­ced in the Net­her­lands.

To work even more local­ly, Loop.a life’s parent com­pa­ny, Bright Fiber, plans to build its own fac­to­ry in the Net­her­lands. So in the future, their coll­ec­tion will be even clo­ser byl!

Loop.a life main­ly uses recy­cled wool. This mate­ri­al is ani­mal-fri­end­ly as no ani­mals are direct­ly invol­ved in the pro­duc­tion pro­cess. Recy­cling wool jum­pers also redu­ces the need for ​‘new’ wool.

In part of the coll­ec­tion, the brand also uses alpa­ca wool. This is a very soft and strong type of wool used to give the jum­pers a sof­ter feel. This Luxu­ry Knits coll­ec­tion the­r­e­fo­re has a luxu­rious feel thanks to the alpa­ca wool used in it. Unfort­u­na­te­ly, it is not clear whe­re this alpa­ca wool comes from and what con­di­ti­ons the ani­mals live in.

Loop.a life’s designs are modern, ele­gant and tim­e­l­ess. The coll­ec­tion fea­tures seve­ral styl­es inclu­ding basic essen­ti­als, ele­gant women’s jum­pers and the bol­der ​‘wad­den’ jum­per. The brand also has knit­ted access­ories such as hats and scar­ves in their coll­ec­tion.

Through their various col­la­bo­ra­ti­ons, Loop.a life incor­po­ra­tes tra­di­tio­nal ele­ments into their coll­ec­tion. For exam­p­le, the tra­di­tio­nal flax pro­ces­sing of Fries­land is incor­po­ra­ted in the lines of the Frys­ke jum­per. And the pat­tern in the ​‘Wad­den’ jum­per is inspi­red by the shapes of a dry tidal flat (cal­led wad­den in dutch).

Loop.a life atta­ches gre­at importance to the qua­li­ty of their pro­ducts. The mate­ri­als are rese­ar­ched and tes­ted to ensu­re they are long-las­ting. The brand also pro­vi­des washing info so you can take care of your purcha­se in the best way.

Loop.a life is very trans­pa­rent about their pro­duc­tion pro­cess and mate­ri­als. All pro­duc­tion count­ries are also lis­ted on the web­site.

The only down­si­de is the unknown ori­gin of the alpa­ca wool, so we can’t for­ma a full pic­tu­re of the ani­mal welfare.