A lil thing on Clingy
Clingy is the passion project of Designer and Maker Isobel Murray - me.
All bags and things are made by hand in my studio in Brunswick, Naarm/Melbourne, Australia.
Clingy was born out of a dream to make beautiful things in a way that minimises environmental and social harm. Clingy thingies are designed to encourage self expression, self love and to gently help us to rethink our relationship with fashion and the planet.
Striving for the most sustainable practice is what keeps me motivated to continue creating. You might be able to relate to the feeling of hopelessness when you first learn about the harmful impacts of the fashion industry. I've found that working within tight constraints and embracing the slow fashion movement has me tapping into an incredible source of inspiration.
Clingy is on an ongoing journey of experimentation and learning and I welcome any feedback and suggestions you might have to help me make better Clingers.
Lots of love,
Izzy xx
Sustainability
Clingy sets high standards of sustainable practice for itself in what we create and how we operate day to day. From day one, we've saved all our fabric scraps for future use and gathered sewing and office waste like thread spools, broken needles and printer ink cartridges for recycling. We carefully source materials based on the following priority:
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Second-life fabrics that are unloved or destined for landfill.
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Recycled or innovative materials that are repurposing waste and minimising the use of precious resources and emissions in the process.
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When new materials are used we preference natural fibres that are sustainably farmed as they have less harmful emissions, use fewer toxic chemicals and minimise the use of precious resources. This is all dependent on the particular material, location and farming practice. We strive to continue to learn more about our supply chains.
We sure aren't perfect but we continue to strive to operate in a way that honours the resources that we use.
We hope the level of detail below is useful to better understand your Clinger but to also inform and inspire you if you are trying to create in a different way.
Piñatex
Piñatex is a natural, innovative and patented new material, made from pineapple leaf fibres gathered by partner farming cooperatives in the Philippines. Piñatex fibres are the by-product of the pineapple harvest. No extra land, water, fertiliser or pesticides are required to produce the material.
3. This fluff-like pineapple leaf fibre (PALF) gets mixed with a corn based polylactic acid (PLA) and undergoes a mechanical process to create Piñafelt, a non-woven mesh which forms the base of all Piñatex collections.
4. The Piñafelt is coloured using GOTS certified pigments and a resin top coating is applied to give additional strength, durability and water resistance.
this is from their website, head there to learn more ananas-anam.com
1. After pineapple harvest, the suitable plant leaves which are left behind are collected in bundles and the long fibres are extracted using semi-automatic machines.
2. The fibres are washed then dried naturally by the sun, or during the rainy season in drying ovens. The dry fibres go through a purification process to remove any impurities which results in a fluff-like material.
Why we use it
Innovation in the textile industry is why Clingy started. We wanted to experiment with and showcase materials like this to offer some hope for a changing industry.
Luckily Ananas-anam encourages student and emerging designers to use the fabric and have a 1 square meter minimum. The material is sourced directly from them in London and is shipped from where it is finished in Spain.
Where you'll find it
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The hero material for some of our classic Clingers. This lovely material has a unique and natural look and feel that softens over time.
Second-life Fabrics & Garments
Finding a purpose for used or waste materials gives us the biggest rush! Using second life materials compared to new ones eliminates the use of raw materials, natural resources, energy and chemicals as well as green house gas emissions. Textiles are rarely disposed of or recycled properly so often these items are on their way to landfill so finding a way to use them is also an opportunity to save the emissions.
Where you'll find it
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Our Fuzzy Lovies and Wooly clingers all use second-life fabrics from used goods or textile scraps sourced from Charity shops around QLD, ACT and NSW.
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All clothing items are reworked from unloved 2nd hand clothes.
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We have sourced fabric samples and dead stock fabrics from Reverse Garbage.
More to come
Organic Cotton & Hemp
Mechanically Recycled Zips
Work in Progress
Recycled PET Sequins
We made a custom order of Clingy logo sequins which are made in London from 100% recycled PET.
thesustainablesequincompany.com
Fabric Printing
Hope you
come back
Clingy's labels were digitally printed with a water based pigment ink by Next State Print.
Packaging
Finding the right packaging for these lovely Clingers will be an ongoing journey.
Today our bags are wrapped in custom Clingy tissue paper, packed into a recycled Kraft cardboard box, sealed with custom wash tape and protected from the weather by a recycled plastic mailer.
Our tissue, tape, boxes and mailers are from noissue.com.au
Why did we choose recycled plastic mailers over compostable ones?
This was a personal choice as we believe that recycled mailers are more likely to be handled correctly after use. These mailers can be recycled with soft plastics wherever Redcycle collects i.e. Coles or Woolies. We don’t believe home or industrial composting is as highly accessible to Australians compared to soft plastics recycling.
Compostable mailers need to be composted in either an industrial composting facility or a home compost as it requires the right conditions to break down. Hence, when these mailers end up in landfill they won’t decompose.