We strive to keep our process as transparent as possible, and we turn to the experts and to you for insight, suggestions, and questions. We’ll answer as best we can. If you don't find the answer to your question here please feel free to contact us

Where do you make your products? Do you use local factories?

Our products are made in Indonesia, Malaysia, India and soon to be China and Peru.

WHY?

That’s where all the excess is. American and European producers have been going to Asia for a long time to make stuff as cheaply as possible without regard to environmental impact. LooptWorks is stepping in for cleanup. We feel that it’s our responsibility to follow the waste stream and clean up wherever we can.
That’s not to say that we don’t believe in lowering a carbon footprint by buying things made locally. We do. We are actively exploring ways to shift our activities toward regional production. Locally made products should be available in all parts of the world. It’s the next step for LooptWorks.

I’ve got lots of used clothing. Can you use it to make new stuff?

Currently, LooptWorks only makes products with never used materials. So, we can’t take your clothes. But we are well aware that Americans throw 20 million tons of textiles into landfills every year. In the future we hope to convert used stuff back into something new. For now, here are the steps we recommend you take with your excess:
1. If it is a LooptWorks product, please donate it to a charity of your choice. Get a receipt and send us a copy. We will give you a discount on your next purchase.
2. Donate all usable textiles to charity for reuse.
3. Donate textiles that are too worn or tattered to be usable to a textile recycling center for repurposing into rags.
4. If your textiles are not even useful as rags, donate them to textile recycler that can convert them into pet bedding, insulation, carpet, guardrail bumpers and even pencils.
5. Encourage your local community to start either curbside recycling of textiles or create a centralized drop off.

Do you take a sustainable approach in your packaging?

We ship our products to you in a re-usable grocery tote. Can you guess what it’s made of? Yeah, excess. The materials we find for packaging get the LooptWorks treatment, with a mailing label attached to bottom. You won’t be receiving any of those ubiquitous courier company envelopes or boxes from LooptWorks. As with everything else we’re doing, we plan to keep experimenting, so if you’ve got any ideas, please share. For now, we hope you reuse the totes or pass them on.

What criteria do you use to define your products as sustainable?

A product is truly sustainable when it’s made so well that it doesn’t need to be replaced frequently. This concept flies in the face of current product development specification from many companies in many industries. They call it designed obsolescence, and unfortunately, the industry has gotten so good at it that only 1% of everything that’s purchased in the US is still in use after 6 months. For all the details, read The Story of Stuff by Annie Leonard. LooptWorks has steered away from the disposable fashion business model and from reducing quality specifications in order to make products cheaply. We work hard to bring you a long lasting, well-constructed garment that will stand the test of time. We double- or triple-needle stitch all critical seems. We test all of our fabrics for shrinkage and tensile and tear strength, and we design products with fabrics that last.

How many items do you make in each of your limited editions?

We never know how much of any one material we’ll find. But we use what we find until it runs out. Production runs go as low as 100 pieces and up to 500, and each garment is hand numbered by either color or style. It’s a reminder that when you buy a LooptWorks product you get a one of a kind item, literally preventing the materials used to make it from going into a landfill.