Circularity pioneer Seljak Brand calls time for its “closed loop” blankets

Nine years ago, sisters Sam and Karina Seljak started what they call “an experiment and a case study” to see if it was possible to build a circular business that turned textile waste into luxury blankets.

That business, Seljak Brand, became one of the pioneers of Australia’s circular economy and the first to sell recycled blankets commercially, designed and positioned as premium products.

However, in March, the founders revealed their decision to close the business, as reported by Inside Retail. 

In a blog post on the Seljak Brand website, the founders said they felt the time is now right to close the business. 

“Even though we’ve weathered the last few years of rising costs of goods, local manufacturing transitions and international logistics crises, small business is especially challenging when you’re in the business of system change,” they said.

Speaking to SmartCompany, Karina Seljak says the brand faced a culmination of challenges — from suppliers increasing prices as demand grew for the blankets in the early days, through to supply constraints based on the actual waste available to turn into the blankets.

“We ran our supplier out of their offcuts and using waste as a material required a range of processes and systems that weren’t established in Australia at the time,” she recalls.

The international supply chain crunches brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic, including increased energy costs in Europe and issues with shipping logistics, also played a part.

“As well as absorbing those costs into our margins, we needed to pass costs to customers, making our products more expensive than intended, which coincided with the cost of living crisis,” Seljak explains.

“Although we would be able to weather this moment if we chose to, we’re looking forward to further the circular economy in Australia by helping other businesses and the industry at large, rather than operating our own production and retail cycle.”

Outsized impact

The sisters’ business journey started with a “hunch that there were better ways of making and using things” and it was immediately clear that others shared the same vision for their “waste-to-resource circular business”. 

“The appetite for what we created blew us away from the beginning,” they wrote in the blog post.

“Not just from customers, but from the textiles and fashion industry itself, all eager to find less exploitative and wasteful practices.”

Seljak Brand launched its first recycled woollen blanket in 2016. 

Before this time, woollen mills both in Australia and internationally did produce recycled blankets but they were “treated mostly as charity or blankets or an inexpensive or second rate product”, says Karina Seljak.

The brand worked with mills in Geelong and the Yarra Valley in Victoria, as well as mills in Italy and Lithuania to craft its unique products.

To date, the brand has sold more than 10,000 blankets via its online store, boutique stockists and hotels, and retailers such as The Iconic and David Jones. The blankets have also been distributed internationally, in Japan. 

This translates to more than 8,058kg of textile waste being diverted from landfill, according to the company.

The business has also donated hundreds of blankets — and more than $26,000 — to the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC) in Melbourne, and the founders have shared their knowledge about closed-loop designs and businesses with thousands of people through talks, events and workshops.

Seljak Brand also raised funding on two occasions. In 2017, the brand raised $32,000 via a crowdfunding campaign to help fund the research and development of using other businesses’ textile waste to make more blankets. This led to a project using the offcuts from Sydney label Citizen Wolf, for example.

A year later, the business received $30,000 in funding from Macquarie Group to continue developing its textile-waste-to-resource products.

Both the business and the founders themselves have also received industry recognition and awards, including The Design Files’ Sustainability Design Award in 2019 and the Queensland University of Technology (QUT)’s Outstanding Young Alumni Award in 2021.

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“Making waste beautiful”

Some of Seljak Brands’ blankets are still available via a closing-down sale on its website, which the founders plan to keep live to provide resources for how to care, repair and recycle blankets. 

They also plan to consult with other businesses, councils and universities, deliver keynotes and masterclasses and provide mentoring, while also undertaking further study in the field themselves.

“After nine years, we’re proud to have proved the case for making waste beautiful and for contributing to the establishment of a circular economy model in Australia,” they added in the blog post.

“The world has changed dramatically since we launched our first recycled woollen blanket in 2016. And thank goodness! 

“We’ll be passing on the torch to many wonderful new businesses that embed circularity and sustainability in their practices. That is, where being concerned with worker’s rights and the natural environment isn’t a key selling proposition anymore, rather considered as normal, obvious and non-negotiable.”

It doesn’t mean the work is anywhere close to being done, said the founders. 

“Trend cycles are only speeding up, and climate changes are more visceral more often for more people,” they said. 

“Pressure from the community must not let up.”

The Seljak sisters thanked their many supporters – from family and friends and employees, through to customers, stockists, suppliers, peers, followers and buyers – who they said are “the reason Seljak Brand existed at all”. 

“Every query, purchase and recommendation led to the news articles, major purchase orders, award nominations and global presentations that got our ideas out there,” they said.

“By investing in cosy, durable recycled blankets, you supported us to push the industry to think differently about their waste streams. 

“You were what enabled us to prove that indeed, there are possible tangible ways to make change, now.”