What is slow fashion?

Slow fashion is a movement that prioritizes quality over quantity, and encourages consumers to buy fewer, well-made items that last a long time. It's an alternative to fast fashion, which is known for being cheap and quick to produce. 

What are deadstock fabrics and why use them?

Deadstock fabrics are the “leftovers” of the fashion industry. These are fabrics that ended up either not going to the intended buyer or not being made into finished garments. Historically, most of these fabrics would be simply thrown away, eventually making their way into landfills. By repurposing these leftovers into products, brands such as Toby are giving these fabrics another life and not perpetuating the wasteful practices of today’s fashion industry.

Where do I source my fabric and what makes it sustainable?

The leather used in the Toby bag has been sourced from BuyLeatherOnline, an incredible source of luxury deadstock fabrics made in Italy. As seen on their sustainability page, “BuyLeatherOnline has been at the forefront of developing and marketing environmentally sustainable leathers for decades. Our business model is based on the concept of circular economy and our efforts help the tanning industry to be more environmentally friendly”

Why is real leather sustainable?

BuyLeatherOnline prides itself on sustainable real leather due to its selection of raw materials: “raw materials used should be waste products of the meat industry and coming from farms that ensure animal welfare. At BuyLeatherOnline we make sure to use only animals that are not killed for their leather. Leather is part of a circular economy process, it can be defined as a recovery material as well as one of the oldest recycling processes. Furthermore, if animal skins were not processed, we would have a huge increase in greenhouse gases, which could lead to the release of several million tons of CO2 into the atmosphere.”