We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Helga Douglas a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Helga, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

I founded Svala as I was unable to find the kind of sustainable, animal-friendly bags and accessories that I was looking for so I decided to create my own.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

Svala is a line of luxury, sustainable bags and accessories made from innovative, vegan fabrics. We use a variety of plant based materials such as Piñatex®, cork and MIRUM® and all of our bags are lined with a material made from recycled plastic bottles and organic cotton.

Piñatex® is a natural, innovative and patented new material, made from pineapple leaf fibers gathered by partner farming cooperatives in the Philippines. Piñatex® fibers are the by-product of the pineapple harvest, which brings new income streams to subsistence farmers, allowing them to fully utilize their crops. This material is composed of 80% pineapple leaf fibers and 20% PLA fibers. We love working with this fabric as it is very sustainable and has a unique, distinctive look and feel.

Our cork fabric is sourced from Portugal, which is known for producing the world’s most beautiful cork. Cork, the bark of the cork oak tree, is beautiful, waterproof, stain resistant and durable. The harvesting of cork is done in a sustainable manner so that no tree is damaged during the process – the harvesting actually helps the tree absorb CO2 and therefore the environment!

The harvesting of cork also creates well paid agricultural jobs and the financial viability of cork helps provide long term habitat protection for hundreds of animal and plant species. These are just some of the many reasons we love using cork for our bags and accessories.

Our newest material is MIRUM® which is a categorically new, plant based, vegan material made by NFW with zero plastic. MIRUM® is currently the only vegan leather in the market that does not contain plastic and we are excited to be one of the first brands using it. MIRUM® is USDA certified 100% biobased, made from a combination of virgin natural materials such as natural rubber, plant oils and cork. In addition to having an extremely low carbon footprint, MIRUM® requires no water during the manufacturing and dyeing process. At the end of its life, MIRUM® can be recycled into new MIRUM® or ground up and returned safely to the earth. We love using this innovative fabric and are looking forward to expanding our MIRUM® range in the future.

Svala participates in a carbon offset program to reduce our carbon footprint. This means that we calculate our monthly carbon footprint from our shipping and then buy carbon offsets to counteract this. Also, with our partnership with Ecologi, a tree is planted with every Svala order.

We’d really appreciate if you could talk to us about how you figured out the manufacturing process.

Svala products are made in downtown Los Angeles at a world class manufacturer which ensures that the workers are paid a fair wage and have comfortable working conditions. We love manufacturing close to home as we can be a part of the process and know who is crafting our products. It definitely took a lot of time and research to find the right manufacturer but we are very grateful that we found one that we can work with locally.

What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?

Over the past few years, many people have become more interested in sustainable, plant based products which has led to a lot of organic interest in the space. It is exciting to see the growth in sustainable fashion and all the developments and interest in innovative, natural materials.      

Contact Info:

• Website: https://svala.co
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/svalaco
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SvalaCo/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/svalaco