Ethics & Sustainability.

Below is an outline of the initiatives and processes which we take as a brand to be as ethical and sustainable as possible in all aspects of our business. You can read about each of the initiatives in more detail below in our ethos outline. 
 
FABRIC
All Maem Disko pieces are currently made from one or a combination of the following fabrics. The choice of fabric will depend on the garments and this will be clearly identified in the description of each garment.
Deadstock Fabricend-of-line, mill overruns, cancelled orders or designer excess. These fabrics are typically deemed a waste product in the fashion industry and would usually end up as landfill. This choice comes with such limited accessibility in terms of fabrics, and thus no guarantee that pieces will be able to be restocked.
Repreve Certified Recycled Fabric - Repreve is the leading, most trusted fibre made from recycled materials including plastic bottles. Their process embeds properties like wicking, adaptive warming and cooling, water repellency, and more at the fiber level. For reliable, durable quality.
Read more about Repreve here
TENCEL™ branded lyocell and modal fibers are produced by environmentally responsible processes from the sustainably sourced natural raw material wood and are completely biodegradable 
Read more about TENCEL here
PRODUCTION
All Maem Disko garments are handmade in Sydney Australia by 3 beautiful seamstresses. These ladies are paid not only well above minimum wage but above a fair living wage! These ladies are extremely skilled and deserve to be compensated fairly for their talents. This is 
something that I believe needs to be implemented drastically into the offshore manufacturing industry as these people are often paid barley enough to be able to eat!
Because of the costs associated with the ethical production in Australia, the prices of our garments must be adjusted accordingly otherwise we would not be able to continue as a business.
We understand the difficulty with the costs associated with shopping from sustainable slow fashion brands and we want to provide the most affordable alternative possible, to encourage consumers to switch from fast fashion brands.
We will never be able to compete with their price point as we are not prepared to grossly underpay the ladies who make our pieces, however we try to price our pieces as low as feasibly possible!
We only have extremely small quantities made and usually operate via a pre-ordering system where customers place their order and then the garments are made after to avoid any textile waste. 
PACKAGING
All maem disko orders are packaged using recycled tissue. We don't include swing tags on any of the garments to save paper and both our shipping labels (purchased from Noissue co) and our mailers (Heropack) are completely biodegradable and can be put in the compost!
TRANSPORTATION
 
All Australian orders will be shipped with Australia Post. We pay an extra fee per parcel so that our parcels are all Carbon Neutral! These fees are to support carbon offset programs which help to reduce our environmental footprint.
Similarly, all our international orders are shipped with DHL Express and 

maem disko is part of their GoGreen programme. This GoGreen Carbon Neutral service, provides an environmentally responsible shipping option by offsetting emissions from the transportation of your shipments.

 

 

OUR ETHOS:
The ethos of maem disko lies in being able to provide detailed, personal and unique garments without compromising our planet any further.
​I have decided that the best way I could go about this was to release piece by piece drops of slow released garments which are hand made ethically in Australia, using all sustainable materials.
The release of small drops and use of pre-orders will allow for a slow production rate and minimal textile waste.

 

Deadstock fabrics are end-of-line, mill overruns, cancelled orders or designer excess. These fabrics are typically deemed a waste product in the fashion industry and would usually end up as landfill. This choice comes with such limited accessibility in terms of fabrics, and thus no guarantee that pieces will be able to be restocked.

Three beautiful seamstresses based in Alexandria, Sydney are responsible for the entire physical production process of each and every garment. All ma-em disko orders are sent using fully compostable biodegradable mailers and all sustainable packaging. 
These choices have been costly however are essential in my personal opinion, and I hope that they are also valued by our customers.
I want this brand to grow, learn and develop as we all do as individuals, and strive to assist each other and our environment to heal and move forward with care and knowledge of our actions and lifestyles.