Monaluna

The GOTS cer­ti­fi­ca­ti­on for orga­nic cot­ton, sets requi­re­ments for working con­di­ti­ons and a fair wage in the pro­duc­tion pha­se. Sin­ce Mon­alu­na works with this cer­ti­fi­ca­ti­on they will do fine on an ethi­cal level. The fabrics from newer coll­ec­tions are woven and prin­ted in South Korea and the older ones in India, this is reflec­ted in the GOTS con­trol cer­ti­fi­ca­tes. Tho­se cer­ti­fi­ca­tes also list names of the last pro­du­cer of the pro­duct but it is unclear what this pro­du­cer was used for and how many more pro­du­cers the­re are. The ori­gin of the cot­ton is not always traceable. Yet the list is exten­si­ve and traceable almost by pro­duct. We think it’s gre­at that they are so transparent.

The foun­der of the brand is very pas­sio­na­te about orga­nic cot­ton and used to find it hard to find when she was loo­king for it becau­se the­re were limi­t­ed opti­ons available accor­ding to her. She wan­ted to sup­port orga­nic cot­ton cul­ti­va­ti­on and so foun­ded her own fabric com­pa­ny through which she now designs and com­mis­si­ons the pro­duc­tion of only GOTS-cer­ti­fied tex­ti­le collections.

In Mon­al­una’s latest coll­ec­tions, the fabrics are digi­tal­ly prin­ted ins­tead of screen prin­ted to redu­ce water con­sump­ti­on and was­te. Swit­ching to this prin­ting method has litt­le impact on the qua­li­ty of the fabric but is a lot more envi­ron­men­tal­ly friendly.

The dyes used for prin­ting are not plant-based but the GOTS cer­ti­fi­ca­te also sets envi­ron­men­tal and safe­ty requi­re­ments for the tex­ti­le dyes. For exam­p­le, Mon­alu­na gua­ran­tees that no harmful che­mi­cals and hea­vy metals have been used in the dye.

Alt­hough almost all fabrics con­sist of 100% cot­ton, the­re are also some jer­sey knit fabrics that can be found with 6% elas­t­a­ne. Becau­se elas­t­a­ne is syn­the­tic (read manu­fac­tu­red from petro­le­um), it is less envi­ron­men­tal­ly fri­end­ly and requi­res a lot of che­mi­cals to pro­du­ce the fabric. But the added elas­t­a­ne makes the fabric sui­ta­ble for clot­hing whe­re a litt­le stretch is nee­ded or fine such as in leg­gings or paja­mas. For child­ren’s paja­mas, by the way, it is recom­men­ded for safe­ty reasons to pro­vi­de them clo­se­ly fit­ted to the body, so a gre­at choice.

Becau­se basi­cal­ly all fabrics are made of 100% cot­ton (or a maxi­mum of 6% elas­t­a­ne) and thus con­sist of one mate­ri­al, they are easy to recy­cle and can get a second life. The brand its­elf does not work with recy­cled fabrics.

All the fabrics are desi­gned in the United Sta­tes and then they are made in South Korea or India. The cot­ton woven into the fabrics could also come from ano­ther loca­ti­on. In any case, the fabrics tra­vel a long way befo­re they reach the stores. We would like to see it more local.

Mon­alu­na works with coll­ec­tions that have the same the­me and/​or cer­tain color palet­te. The­re are 4 to 6 coll­ec­tions released per year and in gene­ral the­se coll­ec­tions are prin­ted only once. Prints that are often reques­ted by cus­to­mers are some­ti­mes reprinted.

The design on the fabrics is quite tim­e­l­ess yet very vibrant! They are cheerful, full of color and with fun cha­rac­ters like ani­mals and flowers.

Mon­alu­na has the pro­ducts tes­ted and acqui­res the GOTS cer­ti­fi­ca­te from the Con­trol Uni­on. The cer­ti­fi­ca­tes they get from them they put on their web­site per coll­ec­tion. The­se docu­ments include fac­to­ry names of tho­se who per­for­med last pro­duc­tion step but no infor­ma­ti­on is given about the ear­lier pro­duc­tion steps. The brand is not open about the ori­gin of the cot­ton and how and whe­re exact­ly their pro­ducts are made.