Circle crossbody bag handcrafted in cork fabric – – Develop-free – Ethikel

Murmali cork fabric is a natural, 100% biodegradable material. The way cork fabric is processed allows the material to retain all the other qualities that “raw” cork is known for: Water resistant, incredibly lightweight, soft to the touch, stain and abrasion resistant, hypoallergenic.

Cork fabric is obtained directly from the outer bark of the cork oak, which grows predominantly in the Mediterranean Sea. This remarkable tree has a bark whose properties and regeneration are unique throughout the plant kingdom. Cork oak tree can live about 180 years old, meaning that each tree allows about 17 to 20 cork bark collections. After the harvesting, the tree regenerates, allowing cork to be harvested again after nine years. Bark harvesting has taken place for centuries in the same way, manually, without the need for environmentally damaging mechanization.
All Murmali bags are produced in a small village in the South of Portugal, near by the cork trees forests where they source the materials for their cork fabric. In their workshop, all the handbags are fashioned entirely by hand with the utmost finesse. Murmali team are proud of the combination of their craftsmanship expertise with the natural environment in which our workshop is located. This results in care of attention to detail, a footprint which is embedded to the bags.