QWSTION

Qwstion Travel Kits made from Bananatex / Source: Qwstion

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WHAT WE SAY:

If only more brands were as committed to sustainable materials as Qwstion.

Unhappy with the solutions it could find, the Swiss bag maker ended up on a three-year journey to produce Bananatex, a new plant-based material from the Abacá plant. Naturally tanned and plastic-free, this stands apart from many alternatives that are laced with plastic. So, the next time colleagues or clients tell you something cannot be done, show them Qwstion. But the real win is that you do not have to embark on such a journey – the brand has open-sourced Bananatex, meaning you can use it right away.

Designing a Qwstion bag / Source: Qwstion

ABOUT QWSTION

Qwstion is a Swiss bag manufacturer that focuses on sustainable materials and ethical manufacturing, founded in Zurich, in 2008, by friends Sebastian Kruit, Christian Kaegi, Fabrice Aeberhard, Matthias Graf and Hannes Schoenegger.
The brand operates its own retail stores in Vienna, Basel, Zurich and Copenhagen, with its products being sold in 45 countries globally.
In 2018, the brand launched its own technical fabric made from banana fibre, called Bananatex. The fabric is named this because it is produced from Abacá plants grown in the Philippines, which are part of the banana family.
The company has worked with the same factory since 2010. Located in Huizhou, China, it is audited inline under the BSCI (Business and Social Compliance Initiative) supply chain management system, an EU initiative, which aims to implement EU standards in non-EU countries.
According to Qwstion, around 80% of their range of bags are produced using Bananatex and the brand plans to increase this to close to 100% by 2025.
The brand uses natural wax and vegetable tanned leather to ensure that its products degrade benignly. In 2020 the brand switched from nylon threads to Tencel ones, meaning that once a Bananatex-based bag’s zips and hooks are removed it is fully biodegradable.
Since its launch the material has won a variety of awards, including the Green Product Award 2019, the Design Prize Switzerland Award 2019/20 and the German Sustainability Award Design 2021.
Qwstion has open-sourced the material – enabling other brands to work with it independently of the company. In March 2021, H&M released a Bananatex-based shoe, in collaboration with British footwear brand Good News.
In February 2022, Hannes Schoenegger, the CEO of Qwstion and co-founder of Bananatex, set up the Fibral Material Alliance in collaboration with fellow plant-based fibre producers, Anas Anam and Circular Systems.