MaWi Australia workroom & headhouse are in Burleigh on Yugambeh-Kombumerri land - Queensland - Australia
in my workroom...
Everything is genuine at MaWi Australia
Everything labelled MaWi Australia is made in the garage turned workroom of our familly home in Burleigh - Gold Coast - Australia
Surrounded by the typical family mess piled up on shelves from ground to ceiling (camping gear, surfboards, boxes of my two babies' tiny clothes I can't get rid of, old toys, gardening tools...etc) I squeeze in hundreds of meters of fabrics finely folded and stored... kilograms of sheep wool properly felted and straigtened... a tall large desk onto which I create, cut, assemble, weave... a clothes line to hang to dry the meters of fabrics I waterproof... a clothes tree carrying dozens of my trials and errors (great memories to hold on to!)... an old wooden console turned sewing table... and, my precious sewing machine.
Every Malo Bags, Mini-Wis & Woolchill'ds are made by hands in this workroom.
It takes about 2.5 hours to make a Malo Bag or a Mini-Wi & about 1 hour to create a Woolchill'd.
Everything MaWi Australia happens in this workroom.
The Malo Bag & the Mini-Wi were created here & their friend the Woolchill'd was born from the desire to use the fabrics and wool cuts remaining.
I love what I do.
I am dedicated to create useful, natural, ethical & sustainable essentials & while doing so, pay attention to minimising my waste by re-using as much as possible & by creating sustainable & efficient products that require minimal waste & the use of natural materials: Linen, Tencel, Cotton & sheep wool.
Photo of me, Laure Niveau, the face behind everything MaWi Australia -
by the beautiful Ange Costes Photography
The wool I use...
... is 100% Australia/New Zealand sheep wool and is a waste product from the textile industry otherwise destined to landfill.
After the raw wool is obtained, it is naturally washed & scoured (using only boiling hot water and soap) then felted, ensuring that the wool is sterilised without introducing any toxic components to the product.
The resulted wool felts are "pretty" easy to work with (imagine them within a sewing machine) and are 100% biodegradable, compostable and sustainable making your Malo Bag & Woolchill'd super gentle to the environment.
Wool is incredibly effective at absorbing moisture from the air and minimising humidity & condensation to maintain stable temperatures, which is one of the natural reasons it is one of the very best insulations there is.
