Interview with MONKA | In our interview serie we ask designer and manufacturer to answer the same 6 questions about their company, their idea about design and sustainability and what is important for them.
Following the answers from Monika Brückner, founder and owner of MONKA.
About MONKA
MONKA accessoires has been founded by Monika Brückner, tailor and fashion designer, who is working in Stuttgart. For MONKA she designed handmade products with an unusual combination of material, form and function. The collection covers high-value accessories and interior objects. Traditional craftsmanship is combined with rediscovered, natural materials. The developed products follow the rule of “form follows technique” and show the love for details.
For her accessories Monika uses natural, local and healthy materials that are sustainable and ecologically harmless – from the cover to the filling.
What is sustainable about your products?
All MONKA products are sustainable in the sense of ecological. We only use natural, renewable materials – in general pure wool, mainly from European sheeps without any additives. We love short ways and think that resources don’t have to be transported over the whole world that we – bizarre enough – can buy cheaper products. All our products are handmade in Germany. So each item is unique, robust and long-lasting.
Which are the 3 most suitable adjectives to describe this and why?
Organic: Due to pure wool without synthetic fibers.
Handcrafted: Each MONKA item is made by hand. It’s fun to rethink former craftsmanship and techniques and to combine them with new materials.
Long-lasting: A MONKA item lasts at least a lifetime. Is there anything more sustainable?
What is the secret to your success?
Watching our products it is obvious that we produce them with fun, know-how and love. We also live with our products. When we once have started with MONKA our aim was to manufacture practical, aesthetic home accessories and interior objects that we like and reflect our attitude of life and values. Our products have been launched to the market just in time. We have touched our customers’ nerve and built up MONKA with a lot of energy and stamina.
Our portfolio has been grown and fits to different lifestyles, are versatile and haptic. One of our trademark is the surprising effect: We combine simple forms with unexpected materials and structures e.g. extremely thick pure wool or very thin paper fibers.
What is it you like about InteriorPark.?
InteriorPark. convinces with a combination of sophisticated design and sustainability. It’s pleasant to find products with background history and draught and to feel the holistic approach behind them – beyond “greenwashing”. InteriorPark.’s portfolio matches perfectly and reaches from sustainable home accessories to furnitures and from architecture to innovative materials and fittings. This spectrum is impressive.
What is good design?
Good design means appealing design as a statement of time – the ideal case is to become an iconic style. Good design has a high significance. It communicates with human beings and they communicated via design. Good design surprises – sustainably.
What are the greatest challenges for design in future?
Providing a consumer and throwaway society with valuable, long-lasting and therefore in best case resource efficient products and the inspiration for sustainable approaches are huge and important issues. Designers have the responsibility to handle with better materials and techniques to protect our planet and to inspire customers for these products.
