Our Practices
Our Practices
Our Practices
Vegan leather
For the largest part, the bags in our Way collection are made from recycled polyurethane (PU). This is an artificial leather that is 100% vegan and cruelty free. We choose to work with this fabric, since it has a beautiful soft leather-like feel to it, is surprisingly light and durable and is a very versatile fabric to work with. Currently, 95% of the PU we use is made from recycled fibers (mix of pre-consumer plastic fibers and post-consumer plastic waste) and our ambition for the next two years is to bring this to 100%. This allows us to be creative in designing elegant handbags for you, while making sure we do not produce more waste. That is the Way forward.
100% recycled nylon
The second fabric we work with it made from 100% recycled nylon. This is a fun fabric to work with as well. We use it mainly for our more playful designs. It comes in a large variety of colors, is very strong and extremely light. Currently only the River and the Pearl models in our Way collection is made from nylon. For our next collection more models will be made from this fabric.
Innovations & ambitions
We want to be at the forefront of industry innovation when it comes to using new sustainable materials and are therefore ambitious to always do better. This means that we keep improving our current production process to make it even more sustainable and are testing interesting new fabrics, such as fruit leathers. Only once we feel that the product is sustainable enough for our customers & our planet, we take it into production. This is the balance we seek for all our designs.
Transportation
To lower our carbon footprint, our products are transported from China to Europe by boat or train rather than by plane. Plus we pack our boxes as efficiently as possible to not transport empty space.
Design
At Mae & Ivy, our bags are built to last. Our focus is on classic, minimalist designs that never go out of style. That’s why we work hard to ensure that every bag is just right. Made using the very finest materials, each bag is crafted with care and attention to detail.
We do our best to prevent overstock by designing just two small seasonal collections per year and by focusing on our principal, season-less collection. We have a no incineration policy, so if we do happen to produce too much then we always find a new use for our dead stock.
Materials
Mae&Ivy is committed to creating an enduring style for our customers & our planet. For our current Way collection, we work with two different fabrics that are made from recycled materials and are vegan and cruelty free. To reduce waste even further, we only use recycled plastic shipping bags, recycled nylon dust bags and recycled Forest Stewardship Council certified postal packaging.
Production
We take care in selecting our manufacturers to ensure that they share our values for fair standards and proper wages for workers. We chose manufacturers in China since the majority of PU is produced in this country and because Mae has personal and business ties there that span decades.
We have fostered close relationships with our manufacturers over many years and we conduct audits of their factories twice a year to make sure that our high standards are being upheld. Since our production scale is modest, we are able to overlook every step of the process.