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    Genie in a bottle: BENU by Fischbacher 1819

Genie in a bottle: BENU by Fischbacher 1819

It's ten years since Fischbacher 1819's Art Director Camilla Fischbacher saw the potential of creating fabrics from recycled PET bottles, putting the company on the path of sustainable textiles with her ever-growing BENU collection.

Fischbacher 1819
Barbara Jahn-Rösel

By Fischbacher 1819 and Barbara Jahn-Rösel for

Logo for manufacturer Fischbacher 1819

Fischbacher 1819

April 1, 2019 | 10:00 pm CUT

The fascination with producing a textile with recycled PET bottles turned into a great success story: Art Director Camilla Fischbacher had the right idea at the right time and carried out pioneering work

The fascination with producing a textile with recycled PET bottles turned into a great success story: Art Director Camilla Fischbacher had the right idea at the right time and carried out pioneering work

It all began with an unimpressive scrap of cloth that fell into Camilla Fischbacher’s hands in 2009. It was stiff but made entirely out of recycled PET bottles and Ms Fischbacher – Fischbacher 1819's Art Director – immediately had a sense of its potential and developed it into a marketable product. The market, however, wasn’t quite ready for the fabric.
Not only is the end product sustainable but its production too: using energy and water-saving methods, an endless yarn is produced, which has earned the textile its Cradle to Cradle status

Not only is the end product sustainable but its production too: using energy and water-saving methods, an endless yarn is produced, which has earned the textile its Cradle to Cradle status

Taking on the challenge

As of 2019, the BENU collection has been in the Fischbacher 1819 product range for ten years and is more successful than ever. After all, the world has recognised that this is the only way to combine beauty with responsibility. Named after a bird from Egyptian mythology which is reborn, like the phoenix rising from the ashes, BENU also means ‘be new’.
The line was launched with BENU PET, a collection of polyester fabrics manufactured in a special process. The energy and water-saving method used to derive continuous polyester thread from PET bottles helped to earn the product its MBDC Silver Cradle to Cradle certification. Parallel to this, Fischbacher 1819 developed a second technique with which new cotton and wool thread is produced from used and surplus fabric. For the BENU® fabrics, only the best textile fibres are newly spun into high-quality threads.
The BENU collection celebrates its tenth anniversary in 2019. It was not an easy path, but in retrospect one can rightly claim that this revolutionary development has given the entire textile industry a completely new direction

The BENU collection celebrates its tenth anniversary in 2019. It was not an easy path, but in retrospect one can rightly claim that this revolutionary development has given the entire textile industry a completely new direction

Where the threads converge

BENU not only gives the Fischbacher 1819 portfolio a diverse, truly timely collection but also unites tradition and innovation in a single product. Already singled out for numerous awards, BENU has given rise to an extraordinary, richly colourful spectrum of unique furniture and curtain fabrics that have become an indispensable part of the Fischbacher 1819 product range. The conviction and confidence that have guided this pioneering achievement have also brought about a fundamental change of thinking in the textile industry.
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