The Joinery

The Joinery is a sustainable and ethical product design brand based in South Africa. Founded by two sustainable designers and sisters in business together, Natalie and Kim Ellis. The Joinery’s focus is on finding solutions to environmental and community issues through design. “ We are pioneers of responsible fabrics, namely the conceptualisation of our ‘Future Felt’ range that is made from recycled plastic bottles and are forging ahead in the sustainable arena. We create sustainable products as a way to positively contribute to furthering innovation in the textile economy, turning potential waste into something positive. ”’

All the products are made by our local artisans and sewing co-operatives based in and around informal settlements in Cape Town – and as such its initiatives contribute directly to job creation. The Joinery uses a mix of traditional African techniques and high quality contemporary design.

Our Artisans work with heart and soul to produce our high end eco products. Working with women who support entire families is why we do what we do. The more products we get to make the more we can expand and create jobs and support our talented Artisans.

We design our sustainable products to be luxurious, designing for retail, corporates and the luxury travel industry both locally and for our international clients. All our products are produced by hand as much as possible so as to minimize our carbon footprint.

Our partnerships create opportunities, contribute to economic independence & raise awareness of the importance of supporting local businesses that can sustain communities.

Our name, The Joinery, is based on our founding principles to collaborate and ‘’join’’ up with artisans, designers and brands to create designs that promote a cleaner planet.

We create and design our own product ranges, from high end travel accessories, made from recycled plastic bottles such as weekender bags, passport covers, hotel slippers, cosmetic bags, a range of travel bags, holders and Totes. We also design luxury stationary lines, laptop bags and lifestyle and homeware ranges such as storage solutions, laundry baskets, floor cushions and placemats for example. We thrive on conceptualising bespoke products for our clients.

Our intense concern for the issues of plastic waste and single use plastic landing up in our oceans and landfills made us turn to finding solutions for re using waste and question how to clean up waste streams. All the plastic bottles in our fabric is collected in South Africa. We saw the impact of plastic waste on the beaches, in the ocean and water streams and within the cities and outskirts, this drove us to realise we need to DO SOMETHING (Our business motto). Statistics we read such as...’’By 2050 it’s predicted there will be more plastic than fish in the sea. If action isn’t taken more widely, it might be too late to curb the damage by then and that South Africans alone, on average, use between 30kg to 50kg of plastic per made us stand up take action.

The more product we create the more plastic we keep from polluting our planet. Our product lines grew and to date we are on our way to saving 500 000 plastic bottles from ending up in landfill. We have taken our passion for plastic waste and found a way to make a change to clean up this issue through business practices. We are inspired to know we are cleaning up our planet, setting trends and have set our goals at saving 1 million plastic bottles from landfill and the ocean in the near future. Alongside this we continue to scale up our ethical production.