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Writer's pictureHarriet Field

Notebooks from Denim Scraps. Community Clothing makes its jeans production zero waste with the help of Mark+Fold & The Paper Foundation.

Updated: Oct 16


Credit: Mark + Fold


Community Clothing has partnered with sustainable luxury British stationery brand Mark+Fold and Cumbria based hand paper maker The Paper Foundation, to create a range of notebooks. The covers are made entirely from off cuts from the production of Community Clothing’s sustainable denim collection at their factory in Lancashire. Historically, the best quality paper was made from textile rags, either post-production waste or end of life garments. Reviving these old methods creates a solution to the problem the industry is facing today. 


Mark+Fold produce and sell exceptional luxury stationary all made in the UK. The CC x Mark+Fold notebooks will be hand bound in Suffolk using a traditional singer stitch process, the internal paper being made from sustainable FSC wood. The heavy paper for the covers is hand made by The Paper Foundation, a charity founded by sixth-generation papermaker Mark Cropper (chair of James Cropper) who became aware that the skills and knowledge around the production of handmade paper were going to become extinct in the UK. The Paper Foundation hand make the highest quality papers at their works in Cumbria as well as supporting a community of local artists and makers. 


The notebooks will be available in two sizes, A6 and A5, and in three colours of cover, made using paper made from either indigo, blue or black denim scraps, with no further dyeing or bleaching.  


Credit: Mark + Fold


Whilst all clothing manufacturers strive to create the least amount of textile waste, the cutting process is at best only about 90% efficient. Community Clothing is dedicated to removing all waste from their systems and following development trials earlier this year they are delighted to be moving into production of this beautiful paper made from the denim off-cuts. Community Clothing's jeans, manufacturer Cookson & Clegg in Blackburn, now collect all cutting room scrap by material and colour. These are then sent just a couple of dozen miles by road to Cumbria for processing. Cotton denim makes exceptional quality paper, resulting in a beautiful collection of notebooks that reflect the differing shades of denim they were made from.  


Credit: Mark + Fold


The Community Clothing x Mark+Fold collection of notebooks will be available in two sizes and three colours, priced at £12 for the A6 size and £16 for the A5 size. The collaboration launches on 21st October 2024 at communityclothing.co.uk markandfold.com


Patrick Grant, Founder of Community Clothing says: 

“This is fantastic way of both preserving incredible local skills as well as making a beautiful super quality product from material that would otherwise have gone to landfill. It has been a pleasure to work with both Mark & Fold and The Paper Foundation, two amazing independent British producers.”    


Amy Cooper-Wright, Founder of Mark+Fold, says: 

“I’m a huge fan of Community Clothing and the whole ethos of keeping skills alive in the UK. We have built the Mark+Fold brand around a pride in sharing the making story behind every item of stationery that we make.  


We always use innovative sustainable papers, but this has to be our most exciting collaboration to date, because you can trace the material from the denim factory right back around to the finished notebook, and even pop it in your jeans pocket!  

The blue colours are just beautiful, and there is no added dye or bleach, so it’s a totally clean process. When waste in the garment industry is such a big issue, we’re really proud to be working with Patrick and Community Clothing to demonstrate such a positive way to use that waste and create something beautiful and functional that you can enjoy using every day.” 


About Community Clothing


Community Clothing is a British clothing brand and social enterprise founded in 2016 by award-winning clothing designer and judge on BBC One’s The Great British Sewing Bee Patrick Grant. Community Clothing does good things for people and communities in the UK, creating jobs where they’re needed most.


The mission is simple; to sell great quality clothes at prices people can afford; to make these clothes in the best British factories from the finest natural materials; and by doing this to create work and support skilled jobs in regions of the UK that need them most. In short, Community Clothing sells great quality clothes, at affordable prices and consequently creates loads of fantastic jobs in places that really need them. To date Community Clothing has created 380,000 hours of work and supported 1,880 jobs. Community Clothing has a network of 42 partner factories all over the UK, located predominantly in the Northwest, Yorkshire, the East Midlands and South Wales.


Community Clothing has developed a unique business model that keeps costs super low, enabling the brand to produce clothes in the very best UK factories from the best materials, and still sell them at affordable prices. The unique business model utilises off-peak production, creates seasonless, brilliant basics, supports ultra local supply chains and promotes radical simplicity. 


About Mark+Fold 


Mark+Fold is a modern British stationery brand, with an unwavering commitment to quality and sustainability. Supporting local expert makers, they proudly share every last detail of how every item is made, and the story behind each material (previous examples include a paper made from coffee cups collected from UK retailers including McDonalds and Costa).


Founded in 2015 by Amy Cooper-Wright, building on a career in branding and book design, Mark+Fold has built a loyal following of stationery connoisseurs worldwide, who value the understated quality of their notebooks and diaries. Customers (who include designers, artists and craftspeople as well as lawyers, investment bankers and politicians, in the UK as well as Australia, Asia and the US) are invited to feed into the design process at an early stage, so that every item is truly functional. Every detail is considered, from the opacity and smoothness of the paper (approved by the fussiest of fountain pen users), to the type of glue used on their thread-sewn bindings (the kind normally reserved for artist publications). Previous collaborations include bespoke stationery products for Bamford, Connolly England, Harvey Nichols, Fortnum & Mason and Margo Selby.' 


For high-res images or further information please get in touch:

Press - harriet@whitehair.co

07790003417

VIP & Influencers - laura@whitehair.co

07917694953



About the paper-making process:

Credit: Ella Thomson


Scraps  

Scraps from the cutting process of making our Community Clothing’s light blue, indigo and black jeans at the UK factory are sent to the Paper Foundation. Most companies throw scraps away. 

 

Shredding 

Scraps are shredded and sorted into piles of the matching colour. 

 

The Beater 

The shredded scraps are placed in the beater for 8 hours where the fabric is broken down into a pulp. 

 

Pulp 

Pulp is the name of the material after the denim has been in the beater for 8 hours. The pulp is added to the vat and diluted with water. The dilution is how the weight of the paper is controlled. 

 

Paper Sheet 

To form the sheet, a paper-making mould is used, a rectangular flat sieve which the pulp is scooped up from and as the water soaks away, the matted fibre is left on the surface of the mould and that is what becomes the sheet of paper. 

 

Couching 

This is the process of transferring the paper from the mould onto the woollen felts. The mould is rolled across the felt and the sheet peels off. The stack of the paper is called a post and the sheets are stacked between woollen felts. The unique texture of handmade paper is because of the texture of the felt. Its an embossing of the woollen felt onto the paper. 

 

Pressing 

The pile of paper, the post, is put into the press and 40 tonnes of pressure is applied to take out the water. 

 

Peeling 

The sheets are peeled away from the felt to make a stack of wet paper with nothing in between. 

 

The Screw Press 

The paper is pressed in the screw press to take out some more water but mainly its to control the texture. This lessens the texture to make the paper more suitable for printing and writing and most uses. Then the paper is again placed between felt and boards and placed in a dry box. It’s dried over 24 hours. 

 

Quality Check & Finishing 

Each sheet is checked and then the stack is trimmed, ready to be sent to the customer. The notebooks are then made at one of Mark+Fold’s partner binderies in Suffolk. The covers are first blind debossed, which means there is no ink or foil used and they will be completely recyclable after use. The notebooks are then singer-sewn with thread to match the pairs of jeans from which the original offcuts were taken. 

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