Submitted by Sqwirl, a design firm based in Hamilton, Ontaria, here’s a set of bags and accessories made from washable paper instead of plastic vegan leather.
For latest in-house project, the design company decided that they would challenge themselves to design and manufacture something fashionable, but good for the planet and for Canada. The products won’t use harmful materials and finishes such as paints and plastics, no animals are harmed in the choice of the materials. It would be an ethically and environmentally friendly system of men’s bags and accessories. The line would be an example of a good Canadian design: practical, aesthetically quiet and minimal, honest and affordable.
“We chose the brand name Sqwirl because of the animal’s hard working attributes, it is a strong association with trees, and around here we certainly do have lots of them.”
In order to satisfy the ethical and environmentally friendly aspect, Sqwirl sourced an über durable German washable paper in place of leather or plastic vegan leather. Unfortunately, nothing like this paper is being manufactured in Canada so this component of the product is German and not Canadian. This paper is 1.5mm thick and made from trees, but processed in a way that makes it washable and super hard wearing (the same material that is found on the back of your jeans in the form of patches – back in the 70’s these patches were made of leather, now they are washable paper).
This unique natural vegan material is derived from trees, an environmental and renewable resource. This ethical material doesn’t rob animals of their skin, pollute the earth with plastic, or try to be anything but itself. It is hard wearing, and like paper you can draw, emboss, paint on it and but you can get it wet. Our paper material is FSC and Oeko-Tex Standard 100 certified.
While most ethical brands use a plastic leather-like material, Sqwirl wants to avoid using animal skins or anything that looks like animal skins. The designers even think that most vegan leather materials are doing a disservice to the cause by trying to resemble animal leather, let alone that it’s adding more plastic to our environment.
“Aesthetically we kept the colors to an absolute minimum (Black) to bring out the subtle and beautiful textures found in the materials. The textures of the paper, the cotton webbing, the bungee cord, paracord, the embossing…. We also plan to introduce a kraft colour version of the bag and accessories in the next round of manufacturing but it is currently limited to black.” Kirk Mosna
Sqwirl products are laser cut in Toronto and hand assembled in the studio located in the Cotton factory in Hamilton, Ontario. In order to optimize the benefits of the material and the precision of the laser cutting, the design team developed a unique method of assembling and lacing that uses paracord, shock cord and cotton webbing. The paracord and shock cord is the only bit of plastic used in the line and they are kept to only fractions of an ounce. Sqwirl brand aims to reflect the company’s personal values by treading lightly on this beautiful planet. The line is designed to be part of a system of products that keeps your stuff organized with a clean, minimalist aesthetic.
Tuvie has received “Sqwirl Bags and Accessories” project from our ‘Submit A Design‘ feature, where we welcome our readers to submit their design/concept for publication.
