Do sustainable mannequins make sense?

3 October 2022

Today, no one doubts the importance of the concept of sustainability, understood as the characteristics of development that ensure the needs of the present without compromising the needs of future generations. However, sustainable companies and products are often spoken about without any reference to what actually makes them sustainable.

According to a recent study by Deloitte, more and more consumers are adopting sustainable lifestyles, but at the same time they require more information, and a greater selection of affordable sustainable options. In fact, 40% of consumers indicate that they choose brands that have environmentally sustainable practices and/or values. This would have been an unthinkable figure just a few years ago, and the trend continues to increase.

It is no longer enough to simply say that a company or its products are sustainable. Consumers have begun to be informed in more detail about the products that they buy, for example, what is the responsible origin of the raw material, whether they are products made with natural, recycled, and/or biodegradable materials, or if renewable energies or circular economy processes are used in their manufacturing. This awareness has begun to be referred to as eco-wakening, a new consumer behaviour that is promoting sustainability in companies.

Faced with this new scenario, and in order to live up to the new consumer purchasing criteria, companies are not only implementing more sustainable production strategies, but they are also communicating them in a clearer and more transparent manner.

How does Pasqual Arnella contribute to eco-wakening?

From our origins, manufacturing papier mâché toy horses, we have advocated the recycling and reuse of materials in order to give them a new life. Today, the little horses have become mannequins, busts, and display heads, but the essence remains the same: our raw material is recycled paperpaste.

However, we are aware of the problems that we can help solve beyond raw materials, which is why we have implemented the following measures to play a positive role in the production process:

We acquire paperpaste from publishers and authorised paper recovery plants, in order to avoid deforestation. This base mix is organic, recyclable, and biodegradable.
Our packaging boxes bear the FSC certificate, they are made from 84% recycled and 100% recyclable cardboard.
The packaging protection filling is 100% recyclable paper, and we wrap the mannequins in reusable cotton bags, made from 100% natural origin cotton plant fiber.

We use renewable energy sources, such as closed water circuits, and our machinery is low consumption.
We take advantage of daylight to dry our products naturally.
We cooperate with Km0 suppliers from our industrial zone, to contribute to the reduction of the carbon footprint.

We know what we have to do…

Our manufacturing technique, which we have completed over 130 years, makes our mannequins and displays even more unique, with a totally different texture and appearance to other products on the market. This has brought them important international recognition, both for large and small brands that are truly committed to sustainability in all areas.

In 2019 we began the collaboration with the New Zealand brand Icebreaker, which started its global movement ‘Move to natural’, and they required the replacement of plastic mannequins with sustainable mannequins. The work was quite a challenge because we developed full-body mannequins for the first time and we had been working on them for several years. As a result, the project was a success, and also the full-body mannequins made from paperpaste were launched concurrently.

The following year, Gento and Valira mannequins, which we named from nature, were exhibited for the first time at ISPO MUNICH 2020 and received an excellent reception.

Consumers and brands give us the answer to this question: Yes, sustainable mannequins do increasingly make sense. It is no longer just a question of whether a piece of clothing or accessory is sustainable, but whether the means used to display it is made from plastic, or made by polluting processes, or other processes that are not respectful of the environment. The consumers of today want to go one step further, and so do we.

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Do sustainable mannequins make sense?

How does Pasqual Arnella contribute to eco-wakening?

We know what we have to do…

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