Philosophy

OUR MISSION

To be a label with a conscience, creating beautiful and practical pieces while using our business as a force for good.

We take our responsibility as global citizens very seriously. From the beginning we wanted Harlequin Belle to stand out as a company which is serious about sustainability and ethical business practices. Well, we thought such an approach might make us stand out initially but hoped that over time we would stand out less and less as more companies embraced a similar philosophy.

To achieve this we approach it from four directions:

1: Our Products

As a leathergoods company seeking to be ethical and sustainable, one of the main focusses would naturally be our products - their production, longevity, usability and ultimately disposal.
We use the best quality raw materials and workmanship when constructing our pieces to maximise their useful life.
The classic designs synonymous with HB mean that you will want to hold onto yours for many years to come.
Our development team remains mindful of end-of-life throughout the design process.
All of our leathers are from farmed, sustainable sources and are locally sourced to minimize our global footprint. Whenever possible we ship our products via sea which is far more ecologically sound than air freight.

2: Our Company

Our offices at Harlequin Belle are powered by 100% renewable sources.
Wherever possible we are a paperless office and in cases where paper use is unavoidable we insist on using recycled stock.
We use technology to connect remotely allowing us to minimise unnecessary business travel.
We are currently developing a program to fully offset the carbon from the shipping out of all orders as well as our inbound freight - as we know you'd love to know that your HB purchase arrives with a carbon footprint of zero.

3: Supply Chain

We insist on making all our pieces in workshops that are ethical.
Manufacturing locally at a price point that is affordable to our customers is increasingly difficult, however, we were only comfortable to use offshore production if our own personal ethical standards could be guaranteed.
Our pieces are made in China by a small family business that we have personally known and worked with for well over 10 years.
We make sure that those who work to produce HB pieces are paid above the current “standard” rate to be sure that they receive a fair living wage for the excellent work they do. In addition to this we ensure that they also receive overtime entitlements and vacation pay (which is not always standard in China) and the conditions under which they work are up to our standard.

4: Corporate Responsibility

We donate one percent of our sales revenue to charitable causes. We are working on bringing you more details around where this money is going and updates from some of the projects we are involved with.
As a business model, we avoid creating fast fashion items and endeavor to make high quality items with classic designs, so they won’t go out of style.
When designing, we are always mindful of reducing manufacturing wastage as well as considering our products end of life and how to reduce the environmental impact of their ultimate disposal.
We have shunned the 'seasonal' model that most fashion companies work under as this is just a manufactured system to encourage needless consumption to drive ever increasing profits and here at HB we feel that if you can't run a profitable business ethically, then you shouldn't run a business at all.

Philosophy

1: Our Products

2: Our Company

3: Supply Chain

4: Corporate Responsibility

Be an insider!