The Silk Bureau’s Sustainable Digital Silk Scarf Printing Helps Studio Ghaith Achieve Their Four Ethical Textile Objectives
“Studio-Ghaith London is a sustainable luxury brand based in London, that makes playful silk scarves and colourful art prints.
The Silk Bureau, based in Evesham, distinguishes itself amongst competitors as the UK's leading digital textile printing company for individual designers, textile design studios and international retailers.
Their luxurious digitally printed fabric including silks, cottons, viscose, tencel and polyesters, parade catwalks, while the home-interiors market attests The Silk Bureau's finest quality fabric.
Studio Ghaith, based in London, provide high quality, long lasting and accessible designs that uplift people with care and humour, through the use of colourful characters and storytelling.
Studio Ghaith’s ethos is built on the belief that it is our job to: “think about being a living example of our politics and incorporate it into our identity as designers.”
They use four interlinked categories as starting points : Ethical, Sustainable, Social, and good design for all.
Ethical
We take Climate Justice as a basis to work from, where sustainability means more than materials and the environment, but looks at the systems at play, and the people affected by them.
Example: Organic cotton is a great eco friendly material that uses much less water than normal cotton, so this would work if we’re only looking at sustainability, But what if it was produced by slave labourers or poorly paid, and abused ones, What if indigenous ecosystems were destroyed in the process of making this cotton? What if it was planted on stolen indigenous land?
Sustainable
Not as in sustaining the status quo of mass production, and environmental destruction, but as in reducing the effects our making has on the environment, we do that by:
Using long lasting and durable materials, that can last for a long time with care.
Non-seasonal designs: Our designs don’t follow seasons or trends, so that they can last as long as possible and used according to your mood, and not fashion trends.
Small quantities: to reduce waste and our imprint on the environment, we produce in small batches.
Slow-Design: our design process is slow, intentional and takes its time to produce the best results possible with the resources available.
Packaging: Ideally we believe that packaging should move from being single use to reusable, where it becomes an end product and not a by product.
Social
To make our designs a reality we aspire to build communities of collaborations with makers, and collaboratives, where we question the divisions, power dynamics and hierarchies of the relationship between designer and maker.
Collaborating with activist groups that seek to change the status quo, by
Offering discounted design services.
Designing posters where all the proceeds go to groups on the ground
Other ways that we are yet to discover.
Good Design For All
it is important to acknowledge the high price tag that is often attached to ethical and sustainable products, making them unattainable to the majority of people.
On the one hand, small scale production that gives people their fair wages, and uses sustainable materials is bound to be more expensive than destructively mass produced products, but making them a luxury product renders their attempts to save the planet ineffective!
About The Silk Bureau
Silk Bureau’s hands-on Owner and Director, Doug Davies, meticulously sources the best fabrics from around the world.
His knowledge of textiles is second to none having dedicated over 30 years to the business.
By listening to our customers’ wishes he knows exactly what they want : Quality – Diversity – Sustainability
With over 140 fabrics in stock Silk Bureau’s extensive range includes, silks, cottons, polyesters and linens, as well as eco-aware fabrics, affording them one of the most diverse ranges of digitally-prepared, print-ready fabrics available in the world.
Whether you are printing short runs of just one metre, or many thousands of metres, the quality remains the same.
