One on One with KAPDAA – the Offcut Company
KAPDAA has quickly become known as one of the most progressive and eco-conscious companies working with fabric, leather and wall paper offcuts to emerge in the last few years.
Linton Tweeds are proud to have partnered with them in producing several products and accessories (which you can find for sale on our website). We have also given off cuts of our tweed to them which they have used to create fabulous items that they sell through their website including passport covers and eye masks. We wanted to know more about this incredible company and to share their journey with our blog readers.
How did KAPDAA start? “KAPDAA was started with an idea to reuse offcuts in a creative way. On completion of my MA, I visited my Mum in Mumbai and that’s where the light bulb moment happened. In her studio I saw tons of lovely fabric material fall to the ground and that eventually would be thrown away. I just couldn’t see the beautiful fabric go waste, so I sat down with the head designer at my mother’s workshop and cut a rectangular piece of fabric, which was then pasted together to create a beautiful bookmark. This was the first offcut product.
”Where does the name KAPDAA come from? “Remembering the idea of creating a brand, I thought why not use her brand KAPDAA and add The Offcut company. As the idea came from her offcut and I am her offcut too (: Hence KAPDAA – The Offcut Company was born!”
What would you describe what KAPDAA does to new customers? “We here work with designers, mills and makers to try turn their offcuts, end of rolls, and other excess materials into unique, sustainable and branded products – notebooks, eye masks, luggage tags, passport holders and many more. Each product is handcrafted and is supporting traditional skills like book binding and screen printing, something which resonates with the brands they work with.
”What is your company ethos? “Sustainability, ethics and transparency – these are the three things we strongly believe in and try to implement in each and every collaboration. We work with family run businesses for our shipping requirements. We even employ craftsmen for traditional practices like screen printing and hand binding the books. This ensures that the craftsmen have a livelihood even in current times where everything is automated. We even send over videos of the production process as we completely promote and believe in transparency.
How did you find out about Linton Tweeds? “We came across Linton Tweeds while we were doing our initial search for mills and makers. Once we interacted with them, we loved their enthusiasm and passion for sustainability. Delighted to have collaborated with them, looking forward to more! ”What are some of the innovations you have produced so far? “Printing ink – We use Soot, which is waste from factory chimneys, to make ink for screen printing in the notebooks. Every paper we print on is manually screen printed. We are also currently working on getting 100% biodegradable plastic bags, for the transport of our products. We have also started using an electric van for local delivering in London, thus reducing carbon emissions.
” What’s next for KAPDAA?“KAPDAA was started with an idea to reuse offcuts in a creative way. As the business has grown, we have come across various new challenges as well as the shear scale of offcuts and waste material in the post production of fashion / interior designers.
Our dream now is to have all the day to day products created from offcuts which makes a sustainable circularity model. We want to be recognized as being a one stop solution for all textile manufactures and designers for all their waste materials making it a simple way for them to be sustainable.
Over the past three years we have saved 5400 meters of fabric from going to landfill and have collaborated with over 250 brands to create beautiful and sustainable products out of their unused fabric. Our “offcut suppliers” range from mills in Scotland, to interior designers from New York to fashion designers in Russia.
We also work with London and LA based shoemakers, Parisian weavers, Belgian pram manufacturers, and tailors at Savile Row. The list does not stop there, and we are always looking to bring new designers on board to help us spread the sustainable Eco-friendly message and create a zero-waste industry. With each establishment we’ve had a different story and experience, but in the end, the result was always positive.”
