Tess van Zalinge, a designer from the Netherlands, started
her brand in 2016 with the urge to make sustainable couture.

What makes her brand unique is that Tess and her Team create entire collections made from waste materials, crafting truly extraordinary
pieces that prove that sustainability never diminishes the beauty of
fashion but only adds to the allure because it was designed consciously by
closing waste streams and using finite resources smartly and respectfully.

Tess’s main inspiration comes from Dutch traditional
craftsmanship which at its core, like most old traditional ways was inherently
sustainable only that it was done out of practicality, financial reasons or
emotional reasons, leading to continued repair and care for long lasting garments
over decades as the norm.

Her way of looking at textiles is influenced by the way her
ancestors, repaired, upcycled and re-used garments until the very last thread
which is an ecological and simply smart way of looking at any “resource” also
beyond fashion.

The beauty lies in re-discovering those traditional, artisanal
techniques and practices that if utilized and highlighted can find their way
back into the here and now.

We can all get inspired by smart designing that
combines traditional and contemporary technologies to combat and make redundant
the craziness of today’s industries that often produce double the waste that it
took to produce the intended items!

On a planet where SO much clothing exists that it will last
to clothe the next SIX generations, there is more than enough material to go round
without any company having to produce another single new item for the next
hundred of years!

Re-think, re-cycle, re-design, re-use.

We hope you get inspired for your own work to look into
ancestral crafting if you haven’t done so yet to harness that knowledge and
intention that stems from a time where humans grew and produced without waste
and for sustenance.

Thank you for listening to this Talk ☀🌊🌍

which came alive through the voices of

Tess Van Zalinge

and your host Stella Sage 🌿