Sustainable Fashion Designers Spotlight: Ditta and Abaća (banana fiber) silk
Oh so glamorous... So who would guess these handbags and dress are made from banana fiber?
It's Banana Week here at The Future King & Queen, so we are exploring and celebrating all the amazing things that are made from Banana Fiber - because it's a Future Fabric with a lot of good qualities, as we discovered in our earlier post explaining what it is, and why it has so much potential as an eco-friendly fabric.
Dita Sandico Ong
All of these gorgeous items in this post are made by Ditta, an accessories label based in the Philippines, which is the creative outlet for Dita Sandico Ong.
As a fashion designer with almost 30 years experience, Dita Sandico Ong was one of the earlier designers working with alternative fabrics.
She designs wraps & soft bags made from Abaća fibre,
which accentuates the beautiful lustre of the fabric. It's breathable and therefore perfect for the tropical conditions of the Philippines, where the Abaća fabric comes from.
Abaća Fiber is made from bananas?
Abaća is a species of banana native to the Philippines. The fruit is not edible, but the stems are made into multiple items. The inner part of the stem yields the silkiest fibres, which are woven into the beautiful fabrics used by Ditta for their wraps.
Handbags are made from both the silky fabric and the thicker woven Abaća leaves.
“Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-savers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary.”
You can purchase their handbags and wraps from their online shop Ditta Channel
or from their boutiques in the Philippines.