Sustainability

Who Are We?

We are a multi-award-winning luxury fashion and bridal label crafting minimalist chic signature pieces only from the finest fabrics with an uncompromising approach to sustainability and aesthetics, leaving no stone unturned. We're on a mission to prove beautiful design can be every bit sustainable and kind to the planet in every way AND support local communities too. 

Our Sustainability Mission

Each of our dresses are zero waste and proudly made in London and made with natural or deadstock fabrics. Leftover fabrics usually get thrown away in normal production, but we transform them into valuable items that go on to help communities and marginalised women. We turn fabric waste into new-born baby clothes and workwear tops for charities – AFRIL , Cornerstone Baby Bank and Smartworks. We're proud to probably be the only fashion brand in the UK who do this. All remaining smaller bits of fabric waste are cleverly converted from fabric into paper and card by Fibre Lab.

That's not all, we are plastic-free, care labels are GOTs certified, organic cotton packaging and a luxury plant silk, some naturally dyed with avocados! 

How We Are Sustainable

Fabric Waste into new born baby clothes for refugees

AFRIL - A Women's Refugee Charity in South East London

Each of our dresses' leftovers gets turned into beautiful new-born baby clothes, like rompers, dresses and adorable booties for vulnerable refugee women who AFRIL support in South East London. Read more about AFRIL info.

 

Cornerstone baby bank, East London

We're also working with a local charity Baby Bank Cornerstone in East London's Leytonstone and making baby clothes for new-born babies. Read more here –  upcycling more off-cuts for new baby charity

 

Fabric Waste into beautiful workwear to support marginalised communities

Smart Works – Women’s Charity

Larger leftover fabrics are transformed into workwear tops and donated to Smart Works, a charity that helps to empower marginalised women to gain more confidence and find a job. Read more about our donations to Smartworks.

 

Fabric waste into beautiful regenerated card

Remaining waste is transformed into paper and card by Fibre Lab, which is being used for swing tags, envelopes for fabric swatches we give to brides and sketchbooks to design our future collections in. Brides can also get their special invitations done through Fibre Lab too on this special card with embossing.

Natural Undyed Silks

The ivory couture silk crepe we use in our dresses is undyed and in its most natural state, which uses less harmful chemicals. As a natural fabric, silk is also biodegradable.

Plant Silk

We spent a long time searching for the best silk replica made from plants that would echo the high-quality fabrics that we are known for. We found it in a natural, plant-based material that contains circular viscose and Cupro. Derived from sustainable wood and pulp from controlled sources, it’s certified by GRS (Global Recycle Standard), European Vegetarian Union and Oeko-Tex 100 standard, making it super sustainable and vegan. See the Elsa Sass dress made from this fabric, a slip-style dress with a very subtle floral pattern.

Natural Dyed Plant Silk dyed with Avocado and Pomegranate Seeds

We have a new style called 'Love in a Mist', made from our plant silk and dyed with Avocado and Pomegranate seeds to achieve a champagne gold colour. Our Elsa Gold dress was so popular, and when this fabric disappeared we started developing this new naturally dyed idea, we are so pleased with the results.

Image of plant silk dyed with avocado and pomegranate seeds for our new gold colour

Deadstock fabrics

We are busy working on an exclusive fashion line of beautiful limited edition every day pieces from deadstock natural fabrics. In our bridal range, we have the Mystic Rose lace dress, which will always use limited edition lace. 

Made In London

 Our dresses are made in the heart of London, nothing gets made internationally, and we closely manage and monitor production.

Made-to-Order

We believe in slow fashion, and so all our dresses are made-to-order, which means we are not mass produced and do not hold unnecessary stock.

Organic Cotton Garment Covers

We have designed and created our own woven garment covers made in London from deadstock GOTs certified cotton. There are no plastic zips, have pretty ties. Making our own covers, uses less carbon from shipping pre-made bags in from places like China and they look feel so much more premium.

Organic and Recycled Packaging

It’s not only our dresses which are planet-friendly, but all our packaging is too! Each of the boxes that we use to despatch our dresses in are made from eco-friendly, high quality kraft board. Made from 70% recycled material, this packaging is recyclable.

Eco-Friendly Supplies for the Studio

All the supplies from hand-wash to the toilet paper has been sourced from the Bower Collective, Stone Minimart and Who Gives a Crap. All the dried flowers have been saved from the founder's own wedding last year and displayed at the studio too. All furniture is bought second hand and vintage, and upcycled.

Less Carbon Footprint

We have also bulk bought all of our fabrics for both collections, so that we don't need things shipped on a regular basis to reduce our carbon footprint. It also helps us to avoid all the many delays that other bridal boutiques experience with shipping from abroad and that Brexit has caused. This has enabled us to be able to respond quickly and efficiently to any short-term orders.

Natural Dyers to Dye Bride's Wedding Dresses

For many years we have been unable to find any eco friendly dyers who can dye sustainably without damaging our environment or the dress due to the harmful chemicals and high temperatures. Here are recommended Best places to naturally dye your silk Sabina Motasem wedding dress 

Upcycle Your Wedding Dress

Our dresses have always been ideal for upcycling dresses. On our specially curated list of our favourite wedding suppliers, we have a section for seamstresses who can upcycle your dress. 

Eco-Friendly Care Labels

We have replaced all of our care labels that were made from the synthetic polyester base ones to these organic GOTS certified ones we've personally designed with sustainable water inks. too.

Supporting Local Communities with Sewing + Fashion Workshops

Community is very important to us, so we planned a series of sewing workshops at ethical store in East London, Stone Minimart where under-privileged went for free. We made hair accessories, we donated leftover beaded samples from earlier collections to good homes, taught how to make fabric flowers and Christmas decorations. We've also had workshops where Sabina the founder has taught fashion illustration and a little bit about the fashion industry to anyone wishing to work in the industry. To find out more read - Let's get crafty, Christmas Decoration workshop

Brides Do Good – A Boutique Helping to End Child Marriage

We donate older samples from previous collections and discontinued styles to the wedding boutique Brides Do Good in Kensington, London. 

We have raised enough funds from the samples we've donated, to support a year of school for over 150 girls at risk of early marriage.

Read more about our donations to Brides Do Good.

We helped the NHS with just under 1,400 scrubs when not many other brands weren't

Sabina Motasem was one of a few brands in the bridalwear industry who decided to pivot everything in March 2020 during the first lockdown and covid wave to produce just under 1,400 NHS scrubs and 4000 masks for over 20 medical centres, care homes and hospitals.

Read more about our efforts we're so proud to be part of here - how we helped the NHS during Covid

What We Are Working On Next...

In addition to all our sustainable efforts, there are still more we need to do be completely eco-friendly, from the ground up. We believe in being transparent about this and are working hard to improve some elements, so we can create fully sustainable wedding dresses here in the UK.

Eco-Friendly Back Neck and Size

Currently these are organza-based high-definition printed labels. We are currently looking for a replacement cotton or linen style label as natural fabrics like these are more sustainable than manufactured fabrics. However, we will only be switching once we’ve used the organza labels up as we truly believe that it’s better to use what we have than buy new.

Carbon Off-Setting

We're currently looking at ways we can engage a third-party to help us become carbon neutral and offset each of our dresses and sales.

Looking for an alternative to plastic bags

Our dresses are packaged in cornstarch plastic bags, which are as strong as plastic versions, but are fully biodegradable and compostable.

We are constantly reviewing our policies, so if you think there's anything that we've missed please let us know and we'll look into it.