Made Out Of

Oud-Beijerland · Netherlands

Marleen Gulden

“I wanted to do something that gives me joy in my work, and creates that joy for others too, by making better-quality, local and more sustainable products for this industry.”

Before MADE out of, she spent years in the gift and merchandise trade, producing for big brands. The work meant fast production and big logos, and she seldom knew where a piece was made or who had made it. She quit, and set out to supply that same trade herself. A year behind the scenes followed, researching circular materials and local production in the Netherlands and setting up Eco Concept Group, the B Corp-certified group that MADE out of belongs to. The brand now makes bags, laptop sleeves and notebooks, plus small pieces for the desk and for travel, from recycled and next-generation European materials. She trained in marketing and design in Utrecht.

I have three questions for you, and something in return.

Three questions.

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Shopper MARLY - Taupe

€125ledge price

Made Out Of

Bureau onderlegger RAY - Zwart…

€59.95ledge price

Made Out Of Accessories · Oud-Beijerland, Netherlands

The workshop she built instead

MADE out of, founded in 2019, makes bags and laptop sleeves in its own atelier in the Netherlands, where everyone working has a distance to the labour market. Marleen Gulden set it up after years making merchandise for other companies.

The first idea was a narrow one: laptop sleeves for the business market. Marleen sketched them in her attic room and read up on every material she could find, and kept at it until the first production run. She had no supplier network to lean on. Finding the right materials and the people to make them took a long stretch of searching, and a great deal of homework, before anything was sewn.

An introduction to MADE out of

Machines out of a belt factory

Early production ran through social workshops. Today the sewing happens at MAKERS lokaal, the brand's own atelier in Oud-Beijerland, south of Rotterdam. Its machines came out of an old belt factory, and the big ones handle the logos and the folding. Everyone there has found regular jobs hard to come by, and a guide works alongside them. Hang tags are made on site too, along with the small products. Having the atelier also lets the brand make more as it grows.

At some point I wasn't happy with the production, because it was all social workshops. There's a really big difference between business and social, and I thought: can it be in the middle? So we created our own workshop.
Marleen Gulden

Keyrings cut from offcuts of apple leather from the brand's own production

Designs drawn for the makers

The designs are kept simple on purpose. A piece should still be well made yet easy to make, which is how production can stay in the Netherlands, where labour is expensive. Each design starts with what the materials can do and what the makers are good at, so pieces last and can be repaired. Most of the materials are made in Italy, where old jumpers are recycled into wool felt and apples left over by the juice industry go into apple leather. Recycled leather is ground scraps bonded again with water and natural binders, the material that also covers the refillable LOOP notebook. Life cycle analyses have been calculated for the products, and a first few carry digital product passports. In 2025 MADE out of won the Circular System Challenger Award at the Fashion Pioneers Awards, which recognised a holistic model that could scale and makes circular fashion social and accessible.