Fashion, made better for life.
We started with a question
What would fashion look like if it was designed around a woman’s actual life — not the edited version, not the aspirational one, but the real Tuesday morning one?
The answer turned out to require rethinking almost everything.
The fabrics. The cuts. The way a garment moves when you’re carrying a toddler, or landing in a new city at 6am, or sitting across a table from someone you need to impress. The way it washes, wears, and holds its shape across a year of being genuinely used.
That question is still the one we ask at the start of every design. And it’s why Esse exists.
For women navigating work, motherhood, travel and more, Esse is the conscious fashion brand that offers timeless, life-ready wardrobe solutions — designed by women who understand real life.
What we make
We design wardrobe solutions — pieces built to work harder and last longer than the average garment, in fabrics that are as kind to the planet as they are to your skin.
Every Esse piece is made from 100% natural, recycled, or organic materials. Our organic cotton is GOTS certified. Our lyocell carries the Lenzing TENCEL™ certification, produced in a closed-loop process that recovers over 99% of the water and solvent used. Our linen comes from OEKO-TEX certified mills.
This level of material integrity isn’t incidental to how our clothes feel. It’s the reason they feel the way they do.
100% Natural, Recycled and Organic Materials
Organic Cotton
At Esse, we aim to use GOTS certified organic cotton. Organic cotton is grown using methods and materials that have a low impact on the environment, using production systems that replenish and maintain soil fertility and are grown without the use of toxic and persistent pesticides and synthetic fertilizers.
Tencel® Lyocell
As of 2020, we only use lyocell certified by Lenzing TENCEL™. Lenzing TENCEL™ certified lyocell is produced by more environmentally responsible processes from sustainably sourced wood. The biobased fibers are manufactured using an environmentally responsible production process and are certified as compostable and biodegradable. This means that they can fully revert back to nature.
Lenzing TENCEL™ Lyocell uses a closed loop manufacturing process, where over 99% of water and non-toxic solvent used in the manufacturing process is recovered and recycled. To learn more, visit Lenzing's website.
Linen
Linen is made from flax and is one of the most biodegradable fabrics that has withstood the test of time. Strong, naturally moth resistant and anti-bacterial, linen is gentle on your skin and the planet.
Flax is an extremely resilient and versatile plant that can grow in poor soil, consuming far less water than cotton. Every part of the flax plant can be used, which means that there is very little by-product from growing this crop. The production of linen uses very little water and emits only ¼ of the carbon as cotton per pound of fibre. Most of our linen is made in mills that are OEKO-TEX certified. OEKO-TEX checks for presence of hazardous chemicals in the dyed fabric, carcinogens, azo dyes and other chemical limits in accordance to the European REACH standards.
Cupro
Cupro is a regenerated cellulose fibre made from cotton linter, which is a short downy fibre left on the cotton seed after extracting the longer fibres for cotton yarn. It has a smooth and silky feel, attractive lustre and is highly absorbent. Using a recycled fibre that was previously discarded, Cupro gives new life to pre-consumer waste, and is a biodegradable fibre that breaks down naturally after disposal. Like Lyocell, Cupro is produced in a closed loop manufacturing process.
Corozo Nut
We chose corozo as an alternative to horn and plastic. Coming from the Tagua tree, corozo is also known as Vegetal Ivory. It has a unique grain pattern, delivers scratch-free buttons and is extremely durable. Corozo is naturally harvested and can only be collected after it has fallen from the tree. Once mature, a Tagua tree can produce up to 25kg of nuts, for over a hundred years. Corozo is also a completely biodegradable product, and a great alternative for plastic.
Recycled PET
Our garment tags and interlining is made from post-consumer PET bottles. Our supplier is BCI, C2C Gold, bluesign, ECO-CHECK, Global Recycled Standard, Higg Index, ISO 14001, ISO 9001, OEKO-TEX® Standard 100, REACH and Restricted Substances List certified and uses cutting-edge technologies in its manufacturing processes to minimise their impact on the environment, like energy harvesting technologies, zero liquid discharge, and monitoring systems, ensuring that our tags and interlining is made in the most responsible standards.
How we make it
We work with small-batch manufacturers close to our Singapore headquarters. Close enough to visit often. Close enough to know the people who make our clothes by name, and to know that most of them have been there for years.
We hold our partners to a Supplier Workplace Code of Conduct — not because it looks good on a page, but because we believe the ethics of a garment don’t begin at the point of sale. We’ve worked towards a B Corp certification, because we want our standards verified by someone other than ourselves.
Every Esse purchase comes with a lifetime repair guarantee. Because the most sustainable garment is the one that never becomes waste.
Supplier workplace code of conduct
By selecting our partners through a stringent process and putting in place a Supplier Workplace Code of Conduct document for our partners to adhere to, we ensure that we remain true to our values.
As our partners are small businesses like ourselves who may not have had the relevant accreditations certifying a safe workplace and fair trade practices, we visit often to ensure that the workers at our partner factories work in a safe environment. Most of the workers have been at our partner factories’ for over 5 years.
Location
Where we make our products are important, and we choose to make our garments at small batch manufacturers around the region. Having the garments made close to our headquarters in Singapore is crucial to us, as that reduces our travel distance, lowering our carbon footprint. A close locality also allows us to visit our partners regularly to ensure that they maintain and apply the socially acceptable practices that we have outlined in our Supplier Workplace Code of Conduct.
Monitoring factory, mills and farms
We use environmentally friendly materials derived from farms, such as organic cotton, Tencel® Lyocell and linen. Whenever possible, we rely on certifications such as GOTS and OEKO-TEX to assure the farms and mills we use are meeting our standards.
Why it matters
Conscious fashion has a reputation problem. For too long, choosing better has meant accepting less — plainer, more expensive, less considered. Clothes that signal virtue rather than express identity.
We’ve never believed that. Style and substance are not in opposition. A garment can be made with full integrity and still be the most beautiful thing in your wardrobe. It can be ethically produced and nursing-friendly and exactly right for a dinner you’ve been looking forward to for weeks.
That’s the standard we work to. Not sustainability as sacrifice — sustainability as craft.
The woman we design for
She has stopped dressing for a version of her life that no longer exists. She invests in pieces that carry her through transitions — in her body, her work, her sense of self. She notices quality. She rewears things proudly. She chooses brands that treat her as a whole person.
She is not defined by a single life stage. But she recognises herself in Esse.
Built for the life you’re actually living. Relevant wherever it takes you.