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FLASHSALE
PEOPLE
Hala - or hala hala - is an informal warm welcoming or greeting in Levantine Arabic. The idea for Hala Collective was sparked while their founder, Signe was living in Lebanon. Being inclusive and welcoming was a fundamental starting point, so ‘Hala’ seemed appropriate.
The apparel industry leaves a deep imprint, impacting not only the planet but also the people who produce and consume its products, and the supply chains are often long and murky. Synthetic fabrics not only release microplastics each time they’re washed, but they also come with a human cost: textile workers, primarily women in the Global South, are often paid derisory wages and forced to work long hours in appalling conditions. The use of chemicals in clothes production also raises serious health concerns, both for the workers and the wearers.
Hala commits to do their part by sourcing in accordance with leading social and environmental standards and by working to increase traceability and transparency. They are working to make a difference for as many people as possible — and they do that best by doing it together.
Working with a diverse group of people, as well as testing their products on a variety of body types, helps them create the best possible product. To Hala, that has everything to do with creating products that matter to the wearer, developed in close collaboration with their community and suppliers — even if it takes longer or costs more. It also means creating an organisational culture that puts people first, valuing flexibility, diversity, and balance.
PLANET
In a time when we are increasingly overshooting our planet’s boundaries, Hala believe that any product should, first and foremost, be made to matter.
The idea behind Hala was to raise the bar for both period products. Creating underwear that not only looks and feels amazing and works for our bodies, but is made with care for the planet. From day one, their priority has been to minimise the impact their design and commercial decisions have on the environment.
They believe that having a period shouldn’t be inhibiting, polluting, or unsafe. Disposable products are full of plastic, glue, and bleach; they’re uncomfortable to wear and incredibly wasteful. One menstruator is estimated to use up to 16,000 disposable sanitary products in their lifetime. These products are the fifth most common plastic waste found in our oceans and can take up to 800 years to decompose. Worse still, studies show that chemicals in disposable pads include carcinogens, irritants, hormone disruptors, and reproductive toxicants, yet almost no one knows this, and manufacturers are not required to disclose materials used.
Since day one, Hala have made informed choices in every part of their process, from design, materials, and production to packaging, marketing, and sales policies. They are constantly looking for ways to account for and limit their impact on the planet’s boundaries. They know they are far from perfect, but they aim big and bold, and are committed to being transparent along the way.
Functional products of high quality.
Hala have developed reusable period and leak underwear made from quality fabrics, designed to replace or reduce the need for single-use plastic products.
Safe materials.
Hala only use materials that are, at minimum, GOTS- or OEKO-TEX-certified, and limit the use of synthetics to the absolute functional minimum.
Strict supply chain requirements and traceability.
Hala work only with manufacturers who meet leading social and environmental standards, prioritising local and regional suppliers. They work hard to trace their supply chain as far and as transparently as possible.
Informed consumption.
Hala educate their customers about materials and production, share full product composition and manufacturing details on their webshop, avoid sales, and encourage people to only buy what they need.
Packaging and shipping.
Hala ship in weather-resistant kraft paper envelopes. All packaging is made from acid-free, recycled FSC-certified paper, printed using soy-based ink, and is fully home compostable.
Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Impact Strategy.
Hala have developed an internal ESG strategy with measurable goals aligned with their company values and mission.
ANIMALS
Hala Collective do not use animal products in any of their garments
Hala Collective carefully choose who they work with and have strict requirements in terms of certifications, location, and they require their suppliers to live up to leading social and environmental standards within the garment industry. They have yearly supplier conversations, meet with and visit as many of their suppliers as they can, and are continuously working to improve the transparency of their supply chain.
Supply chains can be long and sometimes murky to get a full overview of. From the design idea to the final product, a lot of steps have to be completed. Once designs are drawn, then fabrics are chosen and then cut and sewn, but that’s just three steps in the process. Before fabric is fabric, it is yarn, and before that, it is fibres, and there are people and environment to consider at all of these levels.
Below are the different supply chain tiers and how they play out in relation to Hala’s products.
Tier 1: Manufacturing & garment producers
This supplier is where our underwear is cut and sewn into the final product. The manufacturer of our underwear is a family-owned factory in Morocco. We visit them regularly – last time in December 2023. They are BSCI-audited (rated A) and also GRS-certified.*
We do not allow outsourcing of the manufacturing of our products to subcontractors, which is included in our code of conduct and our collaboration agreement with our manufacturer. Subcontracting is quite common. Typically it happens due to capacity needs, but it can also be due to the need for capabilities the contracted factory does not have. We have made a strong stand to not have our underwear made in a subcontracted facility, as we want to be completely certain of the production standards and ethics.
*The Business Social Compliance Initiative (BSCI) is an industry-driven non-profit movement that helps a business (in this case: the factory we work with) monitor its supply chain to ensure that all suppliers are treating workers in accordance with national and international law. The Global Recycle Standard (GRS) is an international, voluntary, full product standard that sets requirements for third-party certification of recycled content, chain of custody, social and environmental practices and chemical restrictions.
Tier 2: Fabric & material producers
These suppliers are making the fabrics we use, and they are all located in Turkey and Spain. We source some of our fabrics directly from the fabric manufacturer, and the remaining of our fabrics via a French supplier.
Building relationships directly with our material suppliers is important to us. They are the experts, and we need quite specific functionalities for our materials to ensure good absorbency and no leakages. Having a good collaboration and partnership is crucial as it enables us to test and develop the right materials together. We meet with the suppliers at trade fairs and are also planning to visit their factories as soon as we can.
Tier 3: Yarn producers
These suppliers are producing the yarns that Tier 2 suppliers use to knit the fabrics. Tier 2 and Tier 3 producers are sometimes the same manufacturer as is the case with some of our fabrics. Our TENCEL™ micromodal is an example of yarn that is produced by the yarn company Lenzing, which is then sent to one of the Tier 2 producers we work with who knit the TENCEL™ yarn into the fabric we use in our underwear.
Tier 4: Fibre producers
These suppliers are making the fibres for the yarn production. This includes the farmers that grow and harvest cotton and hemp plants. The cotton we use is certified organic and grown in Turkey, and the hemp is grown in Belgium.
Lenzing is a company that is both in Tier 3 and Tier 4. They extract the TENCEL™ Modal fibres from naturally grown beech wood – sourced from certified forests in Austria and neighbouring countries – through an environmentally certified integrated pulp-to-fibre process, which is self-sufficient in energy and recovers co-products from component parts of the wood. There is a lot of modal fabric being produced, but it was important for us to work with TENCEL™ made by either Lenzing or Birla to ensure a closed-loop manufacturing process with high environmental standards.
Polyester and elastane are synthetic fibres that are made from melted plastic (yup!). We are only using the absolute minimum of synthetic fibres and only when they have a functional role to play, such as the film-laminated polyester fabric (PUL) that ensures leakproofness, as well as elastane in our shell fabric which ensures that you can wear and wash your underwear again and again without it losing its fit and comfort.