Issue 62

Living in the Environment Issue

Issue 62 is the first issue of the year and always a great time to put our best foot forward. With Adam Goodrum, the loveliest man in design, as Guest Editor, we draw on his insights as a furniture designer, artist and educator to look at the makers shaping our design world. Sustainability has never been more important, and increasingly this is a consideration from the start with projects designed to address their immediate environment as well as the longevity of the planet. From the coldest winters to the most tropical of summers, addressing how we live in the environment is crucial to creating the perfect home.

Order Issue

Explore

Subscriptions

Habitus

Connect

Network

A Product of

Decor Holly Cunneen

Milou Milou Prides Itself As A Socially Responsible Retailer

Custom design isn’t usually synonymous with waste reduction, but in the case of Milou Milou, it most certainly is.

In 2019 Sophie Gandar founded the linen bedding company Milou Milou with brand and web development by Rosaria Gandar. Milou Milou is not your standard bedding company, linen or otherwise. For one, the pieces are fully customisable, and secondly – seemingly incongruously – the company is zero waste committed to operating in a wholly socially and environmentally sustainable manner.

Pledging a professional commitment to environmental sustainability, customers are invited to design their own bedding from a range of flax linen fabrics either vibrantly colour blocked or classically striped. The pieces can be one or two-toned and come in both standard dimensions for pillowcases, sheets, duvet covers and separates, the dimensions can also be fully specified.

The material selection consists entirely of deadstock fabric which is a term used for discarded fabric (often due to oversupply or inability to sell) or offcuts, giving a second life to good quality linen that would otherwise be needlessly discarded.

Despite the intention that flax linen is a long lasting, hardwearing fabric and customisable designs aim to appeal to a consumer buying for the long term, linen easily breaks down (in as little as two weeks in some cases) and is a renewable resource that’s cultivation contributes to soil and quality.

Finally, they’ve tackled the issue of packing – a bugbear of many online retailers – through integration of compostable packaging only. Furthermore Milou Milou is supporting reforestation through partnership with Shopify X One Tree Planted: as a customer completes their purchase Milou Milou commit to donating $1 USD to quite literally plant one tree.

With the unwavering popularity of linen bedding (not to mention upholstery – will Gervansoni’s Ghost Sofa ever go out of vogue?) I doubt we need to cover the durability and thermo-regulating properties of linen. We all know its performance matches its looks. Now, via Milou Milou, custom bedding can be as good for you as it is the environment.

Milou Milou
miloumilou.com

Photography by Lille Thompson

We think you might also like Baina

About the Author

Holly Cunneen

Holly Cunneen was the editor of Habitus and has spent her time in the media writing about architecture, design and our local industry. With a firm view that “design has a shared responsibility to the individual as much as it does the wider community,” her personal and professional trajectory sees her chart the interests, accomplishments, and emerging patterns of behaviour within the architecture and design community.

Milou Milou Prides Itself As A Socially Responsible Retailer

Tags