Nicholas Kirkwood

Conscious Design

Materials & Components

We challenge and push design and product development boundaries to make luxurious products in a way that is fit for the world we live in today and tomorrow, both beautiful and sustainable. No compromises.

Innovative Materials

GRS Recycled Nylon

18th of March marks the Global Recycling Day which celebrates and promotes recycling and reuse of materials and resources on our planet. For Spring Summer 2022 collection, we have sourced 100% Global Recycled Standard certified net made from pre-consumer recycled nylon for our seasonal Beya loafer styles.

Pre-consumer waste is waste that happens on the production level of products, for example fabric off-cuts and loose threads in a clothing factory.

GRS is international, product standard that sets requirements for third-party certification of recycled content, chain of custody, and other social and environmental parameters.

Red delfi ballerina- Compostable Leather

Nature-L ® Leather

This Nature-L ® leather been designed to degrade by 75% in the first 90 days of composting, compared to standard leather which degrades by only 7.8% in the same conditions. This leather uses less water than the traditional tanning process and reduces waste as cut-offs can be composted. It also reduces the amount of dye needed because of the improved colour intake. 50% of leather uppers and 93% of linings are made of Nature-L ® leather.

chrome-free leather

Chrome-free leather has been tanned without the use of heavy metals.This reduces impurities in waste waters created during the tanning process. The leather is produced in a closed cycle so water can be recycled, and overall water-consumption is reduced. 18% of leather uppers are made of chrome-free leather.

Shop our conscious designs

Components

outsoles
insoles
Stiffeners & Toe Caps

Outsole

Our veg-tanned leather soles represent 76% of all Spring Summer 22 soles are tanned only using natural tanning ingredients. They are plastic-free and finished using a brushing technique.

Some of our models have a plastic TPU sole instead of the leather. 71% of the plastic in the TPU soles is now plant-based. Fossil fuels have been replaced with castor bean oil and sugar cane, reducing overall carbon emissions. Plant-based TPU soles represent 15% of our Spring Summer 22 soles. Only 8% of all soles are not made using conscious materials. These include special colour rubber soles that are not yet plant-based and some high-gloss finished leather soles.

We're working on it

Metallic Leather

Metallics used in the collection are not compostable, however, we have significantly reduced the use of metallics in the collection compared to the past.

Pearls

We are still researching and testing natural alternatives. We used glass Swarovski crystal pearls for the Ocean Day Capsule collection.

Carry over products

Currently, 27% of uppers and 100% of linings are made of Nature-L ® leather, 67% of uppers are LWG certified leather and the rest 6% of uppers are made using GOTS certified silk

Rubber Soles

Some coloured soles on the Casati family still use a rubber sole, however all of our black rubber soles are now 71% plant-based. We are continuing tests to improve this and looking for fully natural alternatives.

Calfskin

We are currently experimenting with high quality compostable calf leather, which looks promising, and we hope to use it in future collections. Because of our design ethos we won't compromise on a material unless it is right, but we have moved towards using metal free calf in the meantime.

ABS heels

We are currently looking into compostable alternatives and conducting research on bio-based materials that have the same performance as ABS.