Ethical material sourcing, practices, and partnerships at Sylth Virago will help reduce our carbon footprint. We promise to always put forth footwear that you can not only look good in, but that you can feel good about.
About Sylth Virago
Our Commitment
Workers' Rights
Our products are manufactured to the highest level of care for not only our products but for their Italian workers as well. We have witnessed fair employer practice in the workplace and the positive experiences of their day to day life through conversation and observation .
Durability
Durability ensures sustainability in footwear. Our confidence in our product enables us to subsidize repairs, keeping our shoes from ending up in landfills for a long time, but if they do, over 30% of the material is biodegradable.
Expertise
We work with seasoned sustainability expert, bio-designer and researcher, Jen Keane, 2018 Mills Fabrics Techstlye Award winner, to build a framework for material and supplier selection.
Animal Free
We pledge to never use animal hides, furs or by-products in any of our materials of manufacturing processes, including all dyes and adhesives. We not only care about animal life and well being but we also recognize that livestock production is the single largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions and reducing usage helps the fight against global warming.
Current Sustainability Initiatives
Offset
All of our shipping is carbon neutral. We donate $1.00 from every sale to tree planting organizations to balance our carbon footprint.
Save
Each month we donate to animal rescue initiatives for the rescue and rehabilitation of animals in rural India.
Repair
In most circumstances we offer to cover a portion of repair costs to maintain and extend our shoes’ wearability and durability.
Future Sustainability Initiatives
Shoes contribute to a huge percentage of waste in landfill, so in keeping with our sustainability promise we are in the research phase of developing a program to incentivize customers to ship their shoes to an offsite partner who would then responsibly dispose of the shoes in order to maximize the usage of our innovative materials, minimize overall waste and encourage second hand use of any salvageable portion of the shoe.
SOME OF OUR WONDERFUL SUPPLIERS
We choose suppliers that recognize and respect our mission of creating ethical products which fit seamlessly into the world of prestigious goods. Our products are created by artisans next to some of the biggest brands in the world, such as Prada and Gucci.
Keifer Von Zoe
We use Kiefer Von Zoe’s NPU Green Insole Boards that are made from natural cellulose fiber using a special vulcanization process that creates a stiff, lightweight, high performing material. These insoles are 100% biodegradable and created using only natural substances, no chemicals, no added adhesives, and no dyes. Keifer Von Zoe is headquartered in Parabiago, near Milan Italy. They have a history of partnering with the top producers of luxury footwear featuring high heels and extremely high heels.
Davos
Davos is an innovative supplier of high performance and eco friendly sole materials. They are dedicated to limiting or eliminating harmful or hazardous substances and have an internal process for reusing or recycling cutting wastage. We use their Ecothunit outer soles which are 100% recyclable and made using a new ‘water painting’ system that allows for waste water pigments to be easily removed and the water to be reused.
More info at: https://davos.it/en/quality-environment/
Texpell
Texpell does not have production in its premises as everything is made at their supplier but they select italian suppliers that are keen to sustainability issues and comply with REACH regulations. We use their velvet Velluto Master which is made using a combination of viscose, cupro, cotton and polyester. Cupro is fiber derived from discarded cotton linter (bi-product of cotton industry) produced in a 'closed loop' which means the chemicals used can be extracted after and the water reused.
Giardini
Giardini specialise in PU materials for technical-sport and fashion upper shoes, leather goods and quality breathable and absorbent linings, having developed microfibre finishing technologies very similar in structure and features to genuine leather. All their materials are PVC free and GIARDINI is a certified ISO 14001 (2015) supplier. We use Sport Brush Super Soft T83 and Lite Line Calf.
Italian Converter
Future Sprint S is made of 50% Polyamide and 50% Polyurethane. They employ a process they call THE RESOURCE RECOVERY SYSTEM which means ‘a considerable percentage’ of the Nylon flock waste is recovered and reintroduced so it doesn’t end up in landfill. The Microfiber is partially derived from recycled industrial waste material.