Our Responsibility
Here at Shikku, we recognise the potential environmental and social impacts of our fashion business. We are not perfect but we are committed to making responsible decisions to minimise our footprint and improve our transparency to you, our customer.
Our Materials
Our decision to work with genuine cowhide leather is due to its status as a natural, durable material and an eco-friendly resource.
High quality leather can last a lifetime if properly cared for compared to synthetic alternatives. It is also easy to clean and repair, encouraging longer wear, fewer replacements, and slower consumption.
Leather is a byproduct of livestock reared as part of the dairy and meat industries. Research has shown it is not a key driver for cattle production. By converting rawhide into leather goods and upcycling luxury surplus leather, we are preventing waste from going to the landfill.
Our Supply Chain
We carefully select our partners to ensure their values are aligned to ours.
Our handbags are produced from a family-run business in Kolkata, India. Our founder, Abhishek, has a longstanding relationship with our manufacturer and has personally visited the factory to view the fair and ethical treatment of their employees.
Our manufacturing partner shares our vision of using only premium quality leathers from Leather Working Group certified tanneries. As they also manufacture for European fashion houses, they are able to source high quality surplus leather and offcuts for our upcycled collection.
Our Processes
We strive to reduce wastage in our design and production processes while promoting longevity of our handbags.
Our patterns are carefully planned so that they result in as little scrap leather as possible. We also manufacture in small batches to best match our sales demand and avoid overproduction.
Through upcycling, we creatively transform existing luxury leftover leather into our handbags, contributing to sustainability and reducing waste.
We take care in selecting surplus leather by checking that the texture, finish, aesthetics and durability of every piece meet our high standards of quality. Incorporating this with timeless and functional design results in unique, refined pieces made to last.
Our Commitment
We are not perfect but we are always striving to do better.
We learn at each step of our processes and take measures to make improvements where we can in the hope that each responsible decision will compound towards a more sustainable future.
In our next iteration, we aim to explore using more sustainable materials for our packaging, strap accessories, and internal bag lining.