Thanks for dropping by our little corner of the internet - We’re KaTik - a group of people passionate about supporting the circular economy in Cambodia and beyond through making, training, consulting, designing, sharing, and finding creative ways to generate sales and raise funds. Watch this space to follow our journey and learn more.
I’m excited to introduce this project, share a little bit of history with you, and pass the reigns. When I first started a label in Cambodia, (KeoK’jay) in 2008, my team and I first started using second-hand clothing and figuring out how to use every scrap in production. Seeing that pre-consumer waste was becoming an increasingly large problem, we began incorporating that into our design and production process. In 2 years, we were able to develop a process to recycle everything back into our production, becoming a local leader in upcycling and zero-to-low waste production, and showing many other producers that this waste in fact did have value. In addition to the waste recycled through the initial brand and then the second one, tonlé, totaling around 500,000 pounds over 15 years, I believe that many other producers and designers were inspired to use waste through weaving training my team and I have done at various workshops and training on zero waste design and sourcing that I did at a local fashion design program (Lim Kok Wing University) Several students I worked with started their own brands using waste, which has unfortunately become an increasingly plentiful resource in the country.
Fast forward several years to 2023, and the cash flow of our company struggled under the weight of fluctuating sales and rising costs. I once again faced the challenge of being told by many that the work my team and I had done was admirable but of little value. Unfortunately, tonlé as we had known it, a brand and manufacturer, had to close as a result. But the methodology employed by the team, the knowledge we gathered and the skills and resilience we built are indeed of value and have already created an impact and many ripple effects.
That year, I connected with the team at SHEIN, which was seeking out organizations that were recycling textile waste, with a special focus on countries in the Global South that had been disproportionally burdened by the problem of waste. Although my team and I had spent years cleaning up the waste of other large brands, essentially providing a free service to these brands, we never received funding or acknowledgment from any of them. SHEIN was the first large brand to publicly acknowledge the problem of textile waste in the Global South and manufacturing countries and wanted to support those who have long been dealing with this problem. The SHEIN team saw the value in the people and the work we had done in Cambodia, not just in the brand. So together with the SHEIN team and the Untours Foundation, instead of trying to save the brand, we decided to put the money toward what really mattered - the people and the incredible process and production behind what people knew as tonlé.
So, born out of these challenges and learnings, through resilience and collaboration is KaTik – a new project dedicated to collecting that which is perceived as holding little value and embracing it as a great strength.
KaTik celebrates the many small pieces that make each of us and our communities whole, while embracing the quirkiness and winding paths that make life worthwhile. KaTik manifests as a brand under which the products of several designers and producers are selling and recirculating products but is a container to share learnings and knowledge and a vision for a more circular future in Cambodia and beyond. We are consultants, innovators, creators, designers, makers, sellers, storytellers. We are resilient, we are scrappy, we are enough.
I am grateful to every person who supported my journey alongside my incredible team through all of these changes, transitions, and challenges. It has always been my dream to see the work we started continue under local leadership, and so I am proud to pass the leadership of this new project on to the incredibly inspiring Sokpriya Yan, and I’ll continue to support and act as an advisor. Keep following this space to hear more from her and other members of the team in the future and hear about our journey and updates.