The Black Ghosts can come to life! Thank you to everyone for supporting this important project.
It's really exciting to pioneer this world's first ever production run of plant-based shoes coloured using natural plant-based dyes. This is a big step forward for sustainability in the footwear industry, showing others that there's an elegant solution to the problems caused by the waste from 24 billion synthetic and polluting shoes made each year.
Production Updates Archive.
Collapsible content
Update 6: We've got weave - it's a "wow".
13/03/25
Dear black Ghost pledgers and customers,
The first samples of our production charcoal-black flax-canvas fabric arrived in NZ, and it looks fantastic. Your pre-ordered black Ghosts are still proceeding through production, still within the revised timeline, with shipping to New Zealand planned for late March for delivery to you expected late in April.
A supplier shift – a quality boost.
When our much loved 30-60 person craft-level dyer/weaver in Bali couldn’t deliver as planned, we were fortunate to move, under some time pressure, to a fully certified large-scale facility. We can now see some great benefits:
- Finer yarn and a tighter weave – more consistent duarability.
- More consistent charcoal colour – reducing variation.
- Improved fade and dirt resistance – enhancing longevity.
- GOTS certification – the fabric meets the top organic certification standards for environmental and social compliance.
What this means for the final product.
The finished black Ghosts will look subtly different from prototypes, with a more refined less “crafty” finish. The new fabric and dye is organic, with no toxins, but is no longer dyed using the leaves of the Umbrella tree, as with the various product development and sales prototypes that we’ve shown to customers throughout this long development process.
Once again, we truly appreciate your patience as we’ve worked through the unexpected challenges in delivering this part of this world-first solution to the problem of waste from the shoe industry. We’re sure the effort, and the wait will be worth it. Thank you.
The Orba Team
Update 5: Completion date set.
03/02/25
Hello to all Pledgers and pre-purchasers,
At last we have a date when the black Ghosts come to life. They are set to leave the assembly factory on 21st March with immediate shipment to New Zealand and dispatch to our ever-patient first customers in April.
Our new weaving partner finished the charcoal black outer fabric nine days later than planned, but thankfully just before the two-week Chinese New Year holiday that begun on 29th January. Our production inspector has confirmed that the yarn, weave, and dye consistency are exceptional, and passes our physical and lab tests. We’re eager to see them first hand in New Zealand in the coming days.
Final assembly has been re-set yet again, now navigating the window between Chinese New Year, the Indonesian holiday of Maha Shivaratri (26 February), the start of Ramadan in early March, and the Balinese Day of Silence, and Hindu New Year at the end of March. As the Orba Ghost is crafted from materials sourced from several cultures, it is fitting that we are aware of and reflect those cultures in this journey.
A last hurdle in the last few days has been to again reschedule the embroidery of 60,000 lace eyelets, being 12 on each of 5,000 shoes, one of the 45 unique components in your Ghosts, around the delays, holidays and other pressures that the supplier is under.We’re nearly there—bringing to life a world-first product that helps solve one of the planet’s most overlooked problems.
Your patience and support mean everything at this early stage. Thank you, with scale, and with more great things in the pipeline, we will make a difference, and we can’t do this without you.
The Orba team.
Update 4: Innovation continues, nearing completion.
30/11/24
Hello to all Pledgers and pre-purchasers,
We appreciate your continued patience and support as we work through the final stages of producing the first-ever black Orba Ghosts.
While the key components have been ready at the assembly factory for some time, we experienced a serious challenge in weaving our new dyed flax outer fabric. The problem has been resolved only in the last few days and we’ll announce a new delivery date very shortly.
In our last update, we mentioned improvements in dyeing, weaving, and the footbed. During weaving, we discovered that some, but not all, of the plant-based yarn had “haired-up”, or subtly swelled by a few microns, causing the looms, already operating at close to design tolerance, to fail often. Repairs and spare parts sourcing became difficult over the weeks, and, with profuse apologies, our weaving partner, a 30–60 person traditional firm in Bali who we cherish and love working with, had to prioritise other contracts until the issue was resolved.
After weeks of exploring solutions through our contact network across Bali, Java, Vietnam and China, we’ve moved the weaving to a large, reputable, eco-certified firm near Shanghai, referred to us by the spinners who make our custom flax-yarn. Both tell us they are strongly supportive of our efforts to drive innovation toward a more sustainable industry.
Our staff arrived in Shanghai on Monday, and we should know the manufacturing and shipping timetables within days. We’ll update you once we do.
The black Orba Ghost embodies 10+ areas of unique innovation, including this first-ever use of plant-based dyes in footwear, in this way. With innovation comes the unexpected, and we’ll continue to address the challenges as they arise in our mission to create a more sustainable industry.
Once again, thank you for your patience and understanding.
The Orba Team
Update 3: There's a queue at the factory.
02/09/24
As may happen with new product development we've encountered delays that, unfortunately we didn’t plan for.
One related to an opportunity to improve our rubber by decreasing the time needed for biodegradation/composing (once shredded) to about two years. But during testing, it fell slightly short of the target “abrasion resistance” (durability).
We have since developed a new compound that is showing excellent performance for the last months of physical tests... so that's what we're running with.
The other is that during that process we got “bumped” down the queue by our assembly factory, and we’re still pressing them to get a new manufacturing window, for delivery around Xmas.
On a more positive note, we've used this time to enhance other elements of the shoe, including improvements in dyeing, weave, and the footbed. While these advancements are beneficial in the long run, we acknowledge that they do not address the immediate delay.
We truly appreciate your patience as we have worked through these challenges.
Update 2: Sustainable dyeing in action.
02/08/24
We’re pleased to share the natural dyeing process used for your Black Ghosts in our dye-house just last week.
Using the leaves of the Umbrella plant (a.k.a. Octopus tree), and a method adapted from traditional Balinese techniques, we dye and fix (mordant) the yarn eight times, significantly enhancing fade resistance. The next step is weaving.
The water from the dyeing process, once cooled, flows through a water hyacinth bath, passes safety tests, and then irrigates the banana plantation adjacent to our dye-house. This eliminates waste and pollution of untreated effluent and the side effects of other forms of water treatment.
By using plant-based dyes, we are addressing an issue that is critical to the world's fresh water supplies and ocean pollution issues: Textile dyeing and treatment causes some 20% of global freshwater pollution, which, (of course) then finds its way into our oceans.
To everyone who has pre-ordered, we apologise that these improvements to the dyeing processes, to improve colour fastness without creating waste, have taken additional time. We are working through how this delay affects the rest of production, and will advise an updated delivery date as soon as we can.
For those with deeper interest in the topic, here is a truly shocking YouTube that illustrates the scale of the problem for our neighbours in Java. The sections at 36 minutes and 45 minutes are particularly revealing.
Update 1: New sole improvements.
29/6/24
We're thrilled to be able to announce a major improvement to your new Orba Black Ghosts! Last November our rubber scientists delivered a new bio-rubber formulation for the soles, reducing the time for the sole material (once shredded) to "leave no trace”, meaning it can biodegrade or compost in an expected 2-4 years (in the right microbial environment).
This improves on the ten years (once shredded) expectation for the current compound, without compromising comfort and durability, while keeping the beautiful appearance of the shoe. This innovation brings us closer to our mission of solving the waste from 24 billion pairs of synthetic shoes made each year.
We needed the six months after we first saw the new compound to complete the many physical and chemical tests to prove that it's good enough for your shoes, and to maintain (or improve) our 96%+ customer satisfaction level.
Thanks pre-ordering your Black Ghosts, and for your patience during this process. We will keep you updated more regularly on our progress.
Campaign successful: Tell us your size.
24/04/24
Click on your reward to fill in the shoe size form.
1x pair black - off-white Ghosts.
Campaign successful: 112% funded.
19/04/24
Thank-you to all those who pledged to the Orba Black Ghost campaign. We achieved our target and even exceeded it by 15%. We are bvery grateful to all our Pledgers.
We will be in touch next week to update you on next steps, confirm your Reward selections and all necessary details and how we will gather your shoes sizes.
We are very excited about getting the new range underway and getting your shoes to you.
Thank you again and look out for an email with all the details.
The Orba Team
Production Phases.
-
1. Materials Review
-
2. Yarn Making
-
3. Weaving
-
4. Dyeing
-
5. Rubber Compound
-
6. Assembly
-
7. Ocean Freight
-
8. Dispatch
Pre-order your Black Ghosts today.
We've raised the funds to make and release our first Orba Black Ghosts, but you can still pre-order. Be one of the first people in the world to own a pair of the new Orba Black Ghosts - and you’ll get some great discounts too.
The vast scale of shoe waste.
Orba shoes were born out of the need to make a change for good.
Every year the global fashion industry produces over 24 billion shoes that use synthetics, with little regard for the sustainability of the materials sourced, the wellbeing of the people involved or how these products will impact the environment after disposal.
Shoes can last in landfill for up to 1,000 years and are responsible for creating pollution over their entire lifecycle. 85% of people surveyed take action to reduce waste and we believe this is a problem that we can solve together.