Alchemist

Alchemist?

Dutch Caro­li­ne Mewe was born on Ters­che­lling, a small island on which peo­ple live clo­se to natu­re. Her childhood was a sour­ce of ins­pi­ra­tion for Alche­mist. Alche­mist is a super-femi­ni­ne brand with light­weight, fra­gi­le gar­ments that look sty­lish and bold at the same time. A bit like Ters­che­lling itself.

Eco: from needle to thread?

Yeah, Alche­mist is eco from need­le to thread. From the non-mule­sing merino wool, to the fibres of the eucaly­ptus trees for Ten­cel®. Wait a minu­te, wha­t’s with the merino wool? Well, to make sure that the sheeps­kin stays clean and no flies get in or infec­tions occur, sheep far­mers some­ti­mes cut away the skin around the bum of the sheep. Not at Alche­mist! They firmly choo­se wool from well-groo­med merino sheep.

Ten­cel ® is made of wood fibres. The pro­cess Alche­mist uses is envi­ron­men­tally friendly: the pro­ducts used to extract the fibres are recap­tu­red and reused.

Recy­cling, tha­t’s what Alche­mist really loves. Recy­cled linen, recy­cled denim and recy­cled wool. And thus a lower energy con­sum­ption and less impact on the envi­ron­ment.

Other fabrics that Alche­mis­t’s desig­ners like to work with: cer­ti­fied and orga­nic cot­ton, Modal ® (fibres from Aus­trian beech wood) and vis­co­se. Becau­se the pro­duc­tion of vis­co­se is less envi­ron­men­tally friendly than that of Ten­cel ® or Modal ®, Alche­mist uses this fabric as little as pos­si­ble.

Alche­mist does everything in its power to beco­me even more eco­lo­gi­cal and sus­tai­na­ble year after year. The brand is very trans­pa­rent about this: on the web­si­te you will find a lot of infor­ma­tion about the pro­du­cer visits, the Dutch Cove­nant on Sus­tai­na­ble Clothing and Tex­ti­les and certificates.

A great place to work?

Sin­ce 2015, Alche­mist has an emplo­yee who helps to make the brand even more sus­tai­na­ble, not least in terms of wor­king con­di­tions. For exam­ple, the brand regu­larly checks whether wor­kers in Por­tu­gue­se tex­ti­le fac­to­ries recei­ve the mini­mum wage.

By pro­du­cing mainly in the EU, Alche­mist also con­tri­bu­tes to a bet­ter living stan­dard in coun­tries such as Por­tu­gal and Mace­do­nia. A small per­cen­ta­ge of clothes are pro­du­ced – in good con­di­tions – in Delhi, India. Awe­so­me, no?

A circular brand?

Yeah! Or almost. Alche­mist sti­mu­la­tes reuse and asks cus­to­mers to bring clothing to second-hand shops, to make someo­ne else happy with them. Alche­mis­t’s desig­ners like to use recy­cled denim, linen and recy­cled wool as well.

Short / overall

Alche­mist is sus­tai­na­ble down to the sma­llest fibre. And on top of that, their clothing is femi­ni­ne, sty­lish and bold. Win-win, as we like to call it!