Made slowly.
On purpose.
Our full approach to how this clothing is made, who makes it, what they are paid, what it is made of, how long it is built to last, and what we have not yet achieved.
a kinder future.
“We don't make clothes to keep up with the world.
We make them to remind you the world can wait.”
Slow fashion is not our marketing angle. It is the only way we know how to work. From the moment Myrah sketches a piece to the morning it leaves a family's home in Bali, weeks pass. Hands move over fabric. Decisions are made and remade. Nothing is rushed because everything that lasts was unhurried at its beginning.
What follows is the whole account, in as much detail as we can give it. Where we fall short of what we would like to be, we say so on this page rather than leaving you to find out elsewhere.
People, planet, animals,
and how long it lasts.
Last reviewed August 2026. Myrah Penaloza is an independent, woman-founded label. We design and sell our own line direct, and we do not wholesale or license.
Who makes our clothing, and what they are paid
- Around thirty Balinese artisan families make everything we sell. About half work from their own homes, about half from small workshops the artisan tailors own and run themselves. We own no production facility.
- We use no factories. This is not romance about home sewing. It is influence. Inside a factory you are one buyer among many with very little say over conditions on the floor. With a family, and with a workshop the tailor owns, we are in the room and can raise something directly with the person able to change it.
- A living wage, paid directly. Not the Indonesian legal minimum, and not routed through an intermediary taking a margin. Makers set their own hours and work in their own space.
- No child labour and no forced labour anywhere in our production. Our production sites are the homes and workshops of adults we know by name and visit in person. Children are present in some of these homes because they live there, and they do not work on our garments.
- A written Code of Conduct and Statement of Expectations applies to 100% of our production and to our mills and dye houses. It is shared with every maker in a language they read and discussed in person. Read it in full at our Code of Conduct.
- Direct, long-term relationships. Several of our makers have worked with us since before the brand had a name anyone recognised. We do not tender production to the lowest bidder between orders.
- Through COVID we paid full wages across the network for the whole of the period, while our own factories in India and the United States closed.
- Women's economic participation is the structure of the business, not a campaign. The majority of our makers are women, and we invest working time in skills and quality training with makers who came to us with talent and no structure around it.
Materials, chemistry, water and waste
- Approximately 95% of what we make is certified sustainably sourced linen and organic cotton. We are moving toward 100% natural and we are not there yet, so we publish the exceptions rather than round the figure up.
- The exceptions, named and counted. Across a range of roughly 200 styles, two to three products use bamboo rayon or viscose silk. That is under 2% of the range, and those styles are being discontinued rather than replaced. Two styles of jeans are 95% organic cotton with 5% elastane, which is there so the waist holds its shape. We do not use polyester.
- OEKO-TEX Standard 100 on our linen, which tests the finished fabric for harmful substances including chemicals not yet legally regulated. Certification documents are available on request.
- European Flax and Masters of Linen on our lighter linen colourways, tracing the flax to fields in France, Belgium or the Netherlands grown without irrigation or GMOs. Our mills hold GOTS at fabric level. Documents available on request.
- Botanical dyeing on our signature colourways, using turmeric, indigo and native Balinese botanicals. Five to seven days in the dye before a seam is sewn. Dye waste is not discharged into waterways.
- Deadstock. Where we find seasonal deadstock, fabric already woven and waiting to be discarded, we buy it and use it. Because we do not mass produce, a single bolt can become eight pieces and then never exist again.
- Made to order and small batch. Most pieces are made after they are ordered, in runs of tens rather than thousands. We do not produce stock in order to destroy it unsold, and we do not incinerate or landfill unsold inventory.
- Plastic-free packaging since 2020 across the full supply chain. No poly mailers, no plastic tape, no synthetic filler.
- Microplastics. With natural fibre at around 95% of the range and no polyester at all, our garments shed effectively no synthetic microfibre in domestic washing. The elastane in two jean styles is the only exception.
Animal-derived materials
- We use no fur, no angora, no exotic animal skin, no down and no wild-animal-derived material of any kind. We use no leather and no wool.
- Silk appears in two to three styles out of a range of roughly 200, in ceremonial pieces. It is conventional mulberry silk, not peace silk or ahimsa silk, and we would rather say that plainly than let the word silk sit unexplained on a sustainability page.
- Those styles are being discontinued. At this scale silk is not central to what we make, and removing it takes us closer to an entirely plant-based range. We will update this page when it is done rather than announce it in advance.
- We do not currently hold third-party animal welfare certification for our silk supply, and we do not claim traceability to farm level for it.
Why these garments last, by material and by construction
- Material selection: flax is the strongest natural plant fibre. Linen fibre is two to three times stronger than cotton, which is why linen survives washing that degrades other cloth. Our flax is European long-line fibre, harvested by pulling the plant from the ground rather than cutting it, so the fibre stays full length. Longer fibre means fewer weak points along a thread.
- Material selection: linen improves rather than degrades. Unlike synthetics, which pill, thin and lose recovery, linen softens with every wash while retaining tensile strength. A linen garment is measurably better in year six than in year one. This is the single largest reason our pieces outlast their replacements.
- Construction: pre-shrunk before it ships. Our linen is stonewashed before cutting, so the fabric has already relaxed out of its loom tension. The fit you try on is the fit it keeps. Garments that change size after the first wash are the most common reason a well-made piece stops being worn.
- Construction: cut with ease, for a body that changes. Our silhouettes use generous cuts, adjustable front cinches, one-size drapes and wrap closures rather than fixed tailoring. A garment that still fits through pregnancy, postpartum and every ordinary fluctuation in between is worn for years rather than seasons. This is a durability decision as much as an aesthetic one.
- Construction: made in runs of tens, inspected individually. Every run is reviewed before it leaves Bali, for seams, drape, weight and finish. At this batch size a defect is caught by a person who made it rather than sampled at a rate of one in a thousand.
- Construction: repairable by design. Natural fibre, conventional seams and no bonded or fused construction mean any competent tailor can repair or alter our pieces. Nothing we make is glued together.
- Colour that ages rather than fails. Botanical dye shifts gently over years instead of fading to grey the way cheap reactive dye does on synthetic-blend cloth. An older Rainbeau piece reads as aged, not as worn out.
- Our internal standard: the 108x wear test. Before a garment enters production we wear it, wash it and wear it again, and ask whether it could survive one hundred and eight wears. If it cannot, we do not make it. This is our own threshold rather than an external certification, and we describe it as such.
The honest column
- No chain-of-custody certification. That standard asks every sewing site to be certified individually as a facility, at roughly $2,000 to $6,000 each per year, and our sewing happens across around thirty homes and small workshops. Certified at every site, with a brand certificate of $1,500 to $4,000 on top, the arithmetic lands somewhere between $60,000 and $180,000 a year, which for a brand our size is 8 to 25% of a year's turnover. We could move it all into one certified factory and hold the mark within months. It would cost these families the way they work, so we have not. We laid the full arithmetic out in why ethical certification prices out the most ethical brands.
- No third-party social audit of our production sites. A single audit runs into the thousands of dollars per site too, and across thirty homes it carries the same arithmetic as the certification above. Our labour claims rest on direct, long-standing relationships, our written Code of Conduct, and our own visits, not on an external auditor's report.
- No published carbon footprint or science-based emissions target. We are a small independent brand and we have not yet measured this properly. We would rather say so than publish an unverified number.
- No animal welfare certification on our silk, and no farm-level traceability for it.
- No published supplier list. Our makers are individual families and small businesses rather than corporate suppliers, and we have not asked their permission to publish their names and locations. That is the reason, and it is not a good enough reason forever.
- We are not yet 100% natural fibre. Around 95%, with the exceptions named and counted above.
We publish this column because a brand that tells you only the flattering half of its own audit has told you nothing you can use. If any of it changes, this page changes with it.
The architect and the artisan. One holds the blueprint. The other holds the needle. One builds the mountain. The other makes sure every stone is placed with intention. This is how every piece begins.
Not a production line.
A circle of craft.
We work with no factories. Not because we couldn't. Because we never wanted to. Our network is a small, close circle of artisan tailors, natural dyers, and hand-weavers who chose this work because they love it, not because they had no other option.
The reason is not romance about home sewing. It is influence. Inside a factory you are one buyer among many, with very little say over the conditions on the floor. With a family, and with a small workshop the tailor owns, we are in the room. We know what the space is like, what the hours are, what is missing, and when something needs to change we can have that conversation directly with the person who can change it.
Many of the women in our circle came to us with talent but no structure around it. We invest in that. We sit down with them. We share what we know about design, quality, and the standard a garment needs to hold. Not because it makes the clothing better, though it does, but because watching a woman rise to her potential and feel it happening in her own hands is the whole point of why we built this.
Before it was a model,
it was an intuition.
We had factories then. One in India. One in the United States. We were running the brand the way the industry expected. Production in one place, on someone else's clock, on someone else's floor.
But we had moved to Bali. And from inside Bali, we kept thinking the same thought. Nobody wants to be in a factory. Nobody wants to leave their children and their kitchen and the rain on their roof to go sit under fluorescent lights and make our clothing. So we began something different. Quietly. Without any plan beyond following what felt right.
We started building a network of artisan tailors working from their own homes and their own small workshops. We brought them the linen. We brought them the patterns. They set their own hours. They worked next to their children. We paid them fairly, every time, no exceptions.
The thing we had built on intuition months earlier became the only thing still working. And while the industry was falling apart, we expanded. We hired more artisans. We brought on more families. We kept paying full wages through a year when most brands were cutting them.
By the time the world reopened, we were supporting thirty families through this one small fashion brand. That is not a sustainability claim we added later to look conscious. It is the actual structure of how this company is built, tested by the worst year the industry has ever had. And it held.
From vision to
your hands.
Every piece follows the same unhurried path. There are no shortcuts because there was never a reason to find one.
It begins with Myrah. A feeling before a sketch. A silhouette glimpsed in the way light falls on a piece of fabric. She sits with every design until it tells her what it wants to become, not what the market is asking for.
Around 95% of what we make is certified sustainably sourced linen and organic cotton, alongside Tumanggal hand-woven cotton. Every fabric is chosen for how it feels against skin, how it moves with a body, how long it will survive being worn, and how it returns to the earth. Our linen carries OEKO-TEX Standard 100, and our lighter colourways carry European Flax.
Many of our colourways are created through plant-based botanical dyeing: turmeric, indigo, native Balinese botanicals. The Rainbeau colourway, our most beloved, is born from this process. No two batches are identical. That is not a flaw. That is the whole point.
Our linen is stonewashed before it is cut, so the cloth has already relaxed out of the tension it was held under on the loom. The softness you feel on the first day is the softness it keeps, and the fit you try on is the fit it keeps. Nothing shrinks into a different garment after its first wash.
Each piece is made in small batches, often by a single artisan family from start to finish, and every run is reviewed before it leaves Bali. Your garment is not pulled from a shelf. It is made after you order it. This is why it takes a few weeks. This is why it lasts.
Since 2020, every package we send uses zero plastic. No poly mailers, no plastic wrap, no excess. Your piece arrives wrapped in materials that return to the earth. This decision started a quiet conversation in Bali, and other production houses began making the shift.
The 108x
Wear Test.
This is our own internal standard rather than an external certification, and we describe it as such. Before any garment enters production, we hold the piece, we wear it, we wash it, we wear it again. And we ask one question.
Will this be strong enough to be worn thirty times? Can it be worn one hundred and eight?
One hundred and eight is a number that means something to us. In yoga it is the count of one full mala, a complete cycle of devotion. We use it as our threshold for clothing. If a piece can hold up to one hundred and eight wears, washed, lived in, travelled in, danced in, slept in, then it has earned its place in the collection. If it cannot, we do not make it.
Especially our linens. High-quality French linen softens with every wash. It does not wear out, it deepens. A linen set bought from us this year can reasonably be worn by your daughter twenty years from now. This is what we mean when we use the word heirloom. Not as a marketing word, as a literal design intent.
Natural fabrics.
Honestly counted.
We work with materials that were grown from the earth and will return to it, because the clothes that touch your skin should not be made from the same plastics filling our oceans. Around 95% of what we make is certified sustainably sourced linen and organic cotton. We are moving to 100% natural and we are not there yet, so the exceptions are listed below with everything else, and counted.
We do not chase trends and we do not overproduce. Every garment is made in small batches, sometimes just a handful of pieces in a single run. When something sells out, it may not come back. That is not scarcity marketing. That is what it looks like when you refuse to make more than the earth can hold.
Our most-used fabric, and the reason our pieces last. Two to three times stronger than cotton, breathable, biodegradable, and stronger with every wash. Grown in Western Europe and harvested without irrigation, GMOs, or waste.
Grown without pesticides, soft against skin, and a foundation for many of our flowing silhouettes. Two jean styles use organic stretch cotton, which is 95% organic cotton with 5% elastane so the waist holds its shape.
An ancient Indonesian weaving tradition from the highlands of Flores. Every piece of Tumanggal fabric carries the hands of the woman who wove it.
Between them these account for two to three styles out of a range of roughly 200, under 2% of what we make, and those styles are being discontinued rather than replaced. The silk is conventional mulberry silk rather than peace silk. We count these separately instead of folding them into the 95%.
Every piece of linen we use carries OEKO-TEX Standard 100, the global benchmark that guarantees the finished fabric is tested and free from harmful substances, including chemicals not yet legally regulated. Certification documents available on request.
Our lighter-colour linens carry European Flax and Masters of Linen, guaranteeing the flax is grown in Western Europe (France, Belgium, or the Netherlands) without irrigation, GMOs, or waste, with full traceability from field to fabric. Certification documents available on request.
Our mills hold GOTS certification at fabric level. We want to be precise about this: the mills are certified, the brand does not hold chain-of-custody certification, and the difference is explained in full above.
A refusal.
Not a trend.
The global fashion industry remains one of the worst offenders when it comes to water pollution, carbon emissions, and labor exploitation. Millions of garments are made in conditions we would never accept for the families who make ours.
We are a small, independent, woman-founded brand. We cannot dismantle the whole system. But we can refuse to participate in it, build something that proves another way works, and stand alongside the other brands doing the same.
Because the most radiant things in this world were never made from plastic and speed. They were grown from the earth, shaped by unhurried hands, and carried forward with love.
That's not a delay.
That's devotion.
Your order takes a few weeks because each piece is handcrafted after you place it. Made with care, by someone who is paid fairly to take their time. Someone whose craft we honour the same way we honour our own.
That is what ethical production looks like when it isn't a label. When it's a practice. When it is the only way you know how to work.
If you are assessing this brand, or simply deciding whether to trust it, everything above is the whole picture as we understand it in August 2026, including the parts that do not flatter us. Our Code of Conduct and Statement of Expectations sets out the standards that apply to everyone who makes our clothing. Certification documents and further evidence are available on request at support@myrahpenaloza.com.
With love from Bali,