Behind the Brands at HowCork

At HowCork, we bring you an incredible selection of cork bags and accessories, with full transparency behind our products. We are proud to source our products from small, environmentally conscious, highly ethical cork designers and manufacturers, who support respecting nature to our greatest capacity, strengthening local communities, and fair trade and labor practices. We work closely with each of featured brands to bring a varied collection of cork accessories to our marketplace.

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Corkor

Corkor Image - HowCork


Corkor is the vision of a couple named Natalia Guerreiro and Vitor Lopes, who have grown up in the cork forests of Portugal and made cork a way of life. They created the company Corkor, where all of their cork creations are made from start to finish at their own workshop by hand. Located in Barreiro, Portugal, they employ mainly women in their workshop, where they craft high quality, soft, lightweight, and stunning cork bags and wallets. Corkor is passionate about creating a cleaner, greener future while keeping the traditions of Portugal alive, and that is where they find the inspiration for their cork creations. Their products have been approved by PETA to be completely vegan, and are lined with cotton rather than synthetic materials.

 

Artelusa

Artelusa About the Artisans HowCork


Artelusa is a Portuguese cork designer and manufacturer located in Lisbon. They take great pride in the quality of their craftsmanship, which is done by hand using high quality cork, with extreme attention to detail. They are passionate about creating a sustainable, biodegradable, and natural product. Artelusa specializes in a wide range of cork creations. We are currently offering Artelusa's collections of phone cases and jewelry, complete with bracelets, necklaces, earrings, and rings made from quality cork strands and ceramics. Their products have been approved by PETA to be completely vegan.

 

Grow From Nature

Grow From Nature About the Artisans Image HowCork


Grow From Nature is a brand of handmade cork bags and accessories owned and operated by Bruno Pinheiro, with a small shop located in Ericeira, Portugal. Always inspired by nature, Grow From Nature is determined to bring cork to the world along with the message that we must live in harmony with the planet in order to develop to our highest potential. Grow From Nature produces a line of uniquely patterned cork bags and wallets, featuring squares, swirls, and stripes. Innovative yet rooted in tradition, Grow From Nature has an eye for design and a vision for a clean future. They also produce a line of jewelry featuring azulejos and tribal designs. Their products have been approved by PETA to be completely vegan.

 

UlStO

Ulsto About the Artisans HowCork


UlStO is an innovative brand focused on puristic design and a sustainable lifestyle. Featuring a gorgeous line of cork bags and accessories designed and handcrafted by its founder, Ulrike Stolze, UlStO has sustainable design in fashion at the core of its values. Combining both natural and recycled materials, UlStO works not only with sustainable fabrics such as cork and organic cotton, but also with a unique felt that is made from recycled PET plastic bottles. Located in Dresden, Germany, UlStO sources its high-quality cork from the cork forests of Portugal and its recycled felt from Italy. With all products made and designed in Germany, UlStO brings simplicity, sustainability and minimalist style together to create practical pieces ideal for bringing a touch of nature into everyday life. 

 

Bag Affair

Bag Affair About the Artisans HowCork


Bag Affair's slogan is "carry your dreams," and in the case of founders and designers Taiseer and Ronja, this couldn't be more true. Their vision behind Bag Affair was to design purposeful business bags and accessories for the working woman. Disheartened by the lack of briefcase bags made for women in general, Taiseer and Ronja, two best friends, set out to change that. With sustainability in fashion and gender equality at the heart of their brand, they set out to design truly functional bags for the workplace that are made from natural, sustainable, and vegan materials. Their unique bag styles inspire women to let their leadership skills show and "be bossy." Working with high-quality Portuguese cork, French walnut wood handles, and Italian metal accessories, Bag Affair handcrafts their original designs in family size ateliers in Portugal. Based in Brest, France, Bag Affair is a PETA Approved Vegan brand.

 

Cube Root

About the Artisans at HowCork - Cube Root

Cube Root is an eco-conscious jewelry brand. Each piece has been personally designed and handcrafted in North East England, UK by Helen Smith. Using recycled silver as her main material, Helen’s pieces are inspired by her love of the simple geometries and textures found within the natural environment. One of the unique qualities of working with silver clay is that even the fine silver dust leftover from sanding can be collected and reused. As well as creating delicate silver pieces, Cube Root uses off-cuts of high-quality Portuguese cork fabric to explore subtle color and pattern within their designs. Cube Root's most recent Shape Shift earring collection came from a reaction to our throw-away society, with the intent of showing how simple design could increase the life or use of a single object. Helen is passionate about sustainability and is always aiming to reduce her impact on the environment. All packaging is plastic free, and all products are made with the intent to create as little waste as possible.

 

Scoria World

Scoria World About the Artisans at HowCork

Scoria World started with the vision of inspiring others to rediscover creativity. Yara, designer and founder, wanted to achieve a playful vision of creativity and imagination in the yoga world with sustainability in mind, creating natural yoga mats with creative art. The first designs that launched the company were crowdfunded on Kickstarter in 2017 -  three cork yoga mats inspired by children's stories for grown ups; displaying images of earth, playful fish, home and a general art style of innocence. Yara's campaign was funded with over $15,000 raised to start what is now Scoria's famous cork yoga mats. Scoria's yoga mats are made from natural cork surface sourced sustainably from Portugal and a natural tree rubber backing that is also sustainably sourced from Vietnam. With earth and trees in mind, Scoria set out to create creative yoga mats and goods that are kind to the world, kind to others and inspiring to the imagination. Every purchase of a Scoria yoga mat also feeds 10 in need.

 

Corc Yoga

Corc Yoga | Behind the Brands at HowCork

While traveling through Portugal, Corc Yoga founder Christine Moghadam discovered the beauty of one of the nation’s most bountiful resources, the cork tree. Feeling inspired, Christine left Portugal to design and develop a one-of-a-kind product equally beneficial for people and the planet. The result was one of the world’s most sustainable yoga mats - made from 100% organic cork sustainably harvested from Portugal. Corc Yoga is committed to providing the most natural products to yogis and wellness enthusiasts around the world while supporting sustainable practices, fair wages, and a clean environment. For every yoga mat sold, Corc Yoga donates a percentage of every sale to support a variety of youth mental health programs in Portugal and abroad. 

 

Parafina

Parafina | Behind the Brands at HowCork

Through constant experimentation with materials, design, and manufacturing techniques, Parafina Co. is on a mission to reinvent the eyewear market and reintroduce consumers to products that are thoughtfully designed and carefully crafted. They live by their tagline, See Beyond Trash” - an experimental ethos that defines the character behind the brand. Parafina produces their innovative eyewear with 100% recycled materials and other natural materials such as bamboo. If Parafina hadn’t recycled these materials and repurposed them, they would have otherwise ended up in our oceans, burnt into our atmosphere or buried in a landfill. Now they serve a new purpose, which is to give Parafina eyewear some of the amazing characteristics these materials have: flexibility, resistance, and lightweight design. It’s a win for our planet and a win for our glasses. Parafina creates sunglasses from recycled PET plastic, recycled rubber tires, recycled cork stoppers, recycled HDPE plastic, organic bamboo, recycled aluminum cans, and bioacetate.

 

WearPanda

WearPanda | Behind the Brands at HowCork

The concept of "fashion with a purpose" was a cornerstone of the founding philosophy of WearPanda and it remains central to the products they make and the work they do today. They are determined to be a force for good, both for people and the planet. Each watch they make is handcrafted with sustainable components, featuring bamboo, Portuguese cork, recycled metals and vegan leathers. Bamboo is naturally lightweight, strong, and antibacterial, ideal for something that rests on your wrist all day. Growing bamboo is remarkably low impact: it takes less room, grows faster, and requires less replanting, fertilizer, and water than traditional woods - and bamboo forests produce more oxygen too! Bamboo can't quite do it all though, so additional sustainable materials were needed. WearPanda balanced the natural beauty of its bamboo wood grain with sustainable Portuguese cork as well as recycled metals. Every purchase of a WearPanda watch gives the Gift of Education to someone in need through their partnership with Pencils of Promise. 

 

Bleed

Bleed Clothing | Behind the Brands at HowCork

Bleed Clothing is brand born in the heart of Upper Franconia, Germany in the quiet textile-weaving town of Helmbrechts, where the company remains rooted today. The label was founded in 2008 by local skateboarder Michael Spitzbarth who had worked for various clothing companies after finishing his studies in Textile Design. During this time, he got a good insight into the ways of the textile industry which made it clear to him that something had to change. Nature had already bled enough and it had to stop. With this thought, both the name and the brand were born. Michael's goal was to lead people of all ages to the green way of living using good style. From the very beginning, Bleed has always been in search of special materials, that they now use in unconventional ways for innovative, functional and extraordinary products. With a passion for nature, Bleed uses only sustainable textiles, including organic cotton, hemp, and cork, to make their line of superb quality clothes and accessories. Bleed's motto is "100% ECO, 100% FAIR, 150% YEAH!"

 

Carrymore

Carrymore | Behind the Brands at HowCork

Care more, carry more - this is the mantra of Carrymore, a small brand from Australia started in 2019 by Matias Salinas. After years of watching companies put their profits over people and the environment, as all the while global warming becomes only more evident, he wanted to help create positive change in our world. With the Australian bushfires devastating his local terrain and plastic waste filling up our oceans, he knew he had to do something to contribute to finding a solution to all of these problems. So, he set out to make an innovative water bottle carrier both to create the most environmentally-conscious product possible and to encourage others to carry a reusable water bottle rather than buying single-use bottles. After intense product development and testing, he created a functional, sustainable, and stunning 100% cork water bottle carrier that can be worn on the back or over the shoulder. Carrymore is part of 1% for the planet, contributing to the Seabin Project to help remove plastic waste from the ocean, and is a PETA Approved Vegan brand.

 

Original Cork

Original Cork | Behind the Brands at HowCork

Original Cork's story began in the summer of 2011 with a realization that nearly all flip flops on the market were made of rubber/plastic. At that exact moment, they had the idea to create 100% eco-friendly flip flops. They realized that cork, found right in their own country of Portugal, could be an original and sustainable material that they could use. This idea came to mind one morning while looking at the landscape of Alentejo (a zone in Southern Portugal), where there were those half-naked, just-harvested cork trees with no bark. They began to design innovative, 100% natural, and vegan flip flops the made with cork straps, a cork foot bed, and a rubber cork sole. Manufactured in Portugal, Original Cork is an eco-friendly footwear brand for different people with a common aim - the respect for sustainability.