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This brand turns scrap fabric into beautiful accessories

Words by Smiley Team

Offcuts aren’t dirty fabrics. They’re just fabrics we can’t use.

Have you ever thought of what happens to the leftover fabrics after a T-shirt, dress, or shorts are made? Often, these scraps would just go straight to landfill, because many are too small to be re-used for clothing.

But Kapdaa wanted to change that, by creating sustainable, handcrafted stationery and accessories from these offcuts. Nishant Parekh, co-founder of Kapdaa, was inspired to start the brand after visiting his mum’s workshop in Mumbai – she’s a fashion designer.

Since launching in 2018, Kapdaa has stopped more than 10,000 metres of fabric going to landfill.

[Read More: The ‘slow fashion’ brand that helps Peruvian women]

Nishant saw the offcuts going to waste and wanted to do something about it, so originally came up with the idea of making fabric bookmarks. It was just an experiment, but it went down really well.

A month later, his mum called him when he was back in London and said a lot of people wanted to buy the bookmarks, so he started exploring more products he could make and launched Kapdaa. 

Now, Kapdaa – The Offcut Company, works with fashion and textile designers, who send them all their fabric offcuts. They make products and give them back to the brand – pens, card wallets, tote bags, for example, which the brand may use for limited edition pieces. “It shows their commitment to sustainability,” says Nishant. 

Every three days, Nishant says he’ll get an email from an individual or brand who just wants to donates fabrics. So they launched their business-to-consumer website, where people can buy products direct, made from these offcuts.

“We need to increase the life of offcuts,” says Nishant. “Only then people will accept they are still beautiful.”

Find out more about Kapdaa – The Offcut Company on its website and watch the video above.

This article aligns with the following UN SDGs

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