Founded in 1972, Alcantara S.p.A. is the Italian Company producing and globally marketing the unparalleled material under the registered trademark Alcantara®.
The word Alcantara indicates at the same time the Material, the Company and the Brand.
As a Material, Alcantara® is a true bond between technology and commitment to sustainability, but also between emotion and performance. It is a lifestyle material, resulting from a proprietary technology, which provides a unique combination of functional and emotional values: Alcantara is elegant, soft, light, strong, durable, resistant to light and heat, breathable, warm in winter and cool in summer, and all with a high-grip surface and easy to care for.
As a Company, Alcantara S.p.A. is the world’s only Company that manufactures and markets worldwide the original Alcantara® material. Entirely based in Italy, Alcantara boasts two operational sites: its headquarters in Milan, and its site in Nera Montoro (Terni). It is here that the production plant and the Research and Development Centre are located. Alcantara was the first industrial Italian Company – and among the very first in the world – to be certified Carbon Neutral continuously for the past twelve years by playing a pioneering role in commitment to sustainability since 2009, having measured, reduced and compensated all the CO2 emissions related to its activity.
As a Brand, Alcantara is a trusted lifestyle partner of leading global brands in the luxury sphere across multiple industries. Alcantara can be applied to express and define a contemporary and unique lifestyle for people who like to fully enjoy the products they use on a daily basis, for people who like to fully enjoy something cool, contemporary and committed to sustainability.
More info www.alcantara.com
Alcantara's values
The business model in which Alcantara has been pioneering since many years and on which it bases its strategic pillars are the so-called "point of engagement":
Global Brand
Alcantara is a global brand: it knows no geographical boundaries, and its applications are unlimited. From the production plant on the Umbrian hills, Alcantara is exported to every corner of the world, revealing the multiple faces of the material that is infinitely adaptable, and that can be integrated into everyday objects and accessories.
Thanks to its extreme versatility, Alcantara is now the lifestyle partner of leading luxury brands operating across the world in various industry sectors: from fashion to interiors, consumer electronics to automotive, aviation and yachting.
Alcantara is like a shape-shifter, always ready for metamorphosis, and even when it’s at its most eccentric, it remains faithful to its nature as a practical material.
Made in Italy
Alcantara is 100% Made in Italy: every single metre of the material comes from the Company’s production plant in Nera Montoro, the process is fully integrated, from raw materials to the finished product. Every phase of the process is entirely made at the same production site, in order to control the quality of the material from the beginning to the end of the cycle. From Italy, the material then travels around the globe.
With exports representing 90% of turnover, Alcantara has established itself abroad as an ambassador of authentic Made in Italy quality: products are created with advanced technology without sacrificing attentionto detail, staying true to its values of traditional craftsmanship. This aspect has great recognition abroad, and makes Alcantara synonymous with quality, passion and creativity, and founded upon original ideas, work, and people.
Exclusive Tailor-made Approach
For Alcantara "exclusive tailor-made" means exploiting the extraordinary possibilities of material to create an infinite number of “languages”, expressions and exclusive solutions, meeting the specific needs of each of the customers. Printing, perforation, laser-cutting, foils and resins, embroidery, electro-welding, embossing, engraving and weaving are just some of the effects Alcantara offers, as well as pairings with other luxury materials, from fabrics to leather, wood to carbon fibre.
Add to this an infinite palette of colours, often created specifically for the costumer and the application requested, as well as a host of different designs and patterns, and the potential for customizing the material is infinite.
- Inspirations: https://www.alcantara.com/inspirations/
- Colour charts: https://www.alcantara.com/download-area/
Relationship with Art, Design and Creativity
Since many years Alcantara has been cultivating an extremely rewarding relationship with the excellence of the design community, collaborating with both established top designers and creative avant-gardes. Through the years Alcantara became the means by which international artists and designers express their creativity. These artists often subject the material to a level of stress that leads them to come up with entirely original solutions. Alcantara receives back new ideas on how to present and apply the material.
This mutual process of taking and giving inspiration continuously upgrades the tailoring process and it is so important that it has become an integral part of Alcantara’s competitive strategy. The strength of this new method is building a mutual dialogue with the visual artists, fashion and industrial designers, musicians, theatre directors, video makers, architects always in close partnership with renowned curators, museums and cultural institutions worldwide. To name but a few, Alcantara has worked with the designers Giulio Cappellini, Nendo, Marcel Wanders and the artists Nanda Vigo, Alberto Biasi, Formafantasma, Konstantin Grcic, Qin Feng, Qu Lei Lei and Chiharu Shiota. The artworks have been exhibited in some of the most prestigious international museums, such as Palazzo Reale in Milan, the MAXXI Museum in Rome, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Yuz Museum and the K11 in Shanghai, the Mori Museum in Tokyo and the Petersen Museum in Los Angeles.
Commitment to Sustainability
Alcantara firmly believes that commitment to sustainability is a necessary factor that is consistent with its long-term objective of increasing the economic and financial value of the Company. For Alcantara, commitment to sustainability is not a side effect, but rather a key requirement.
Alcantara has always been profoundly committed to sustainability. In fact, for a number of years, the Company has based its approach to development and profitability on the balance between social, economic and environmental factors. Over time, sustainability has become a true guiding principle, involving the entire corporate structure and creating a real shared culture. It is key to the Company’s mission: making every day extraordinary.
Alcantara was the first industrial Italian company, and among the very first in the world, to be certified Carbon Neutral by TÜV SÜD continuously for the past twelve years, since 2009.
Alcantara measures, reduces and offsets 100% of all carbon emissions attributable both to Company activities and to the product, from cradle to grave. The residual emissions are offset each year through Certified and Verified Offsetting Projects, validated and proved by an accredited third party, following the application of rigorous verification processes to which all offsetting projects are subjected, designed to promote the use of renewable energy in the poorest and most disadvantaged areas of the world.
Operating a cradle to grave approach, Alcantara is fully responsible for its supply chain. Alcantara has been assessing and monitoring its supply chain since 2007, with the aim to increase the awareness and commitment to sustainability, asking its partners and suppliers to respect the universal principles of human rights, labour standards, environmental standards, and fight against corruption.
Alcantara is also committed to a strong focus on stakeholder engagement, carrying out an organic group of actions and initiatives aimed at involving our principal partners from different business sectors with the cross-cutting approach that distinguishes the Company.
As an act of transparency, which Alcantara considers absolutely key in the field of Sustainability, Alcantara publishes every year a Sustainability Report that encompasses all the initiatives and actions undertaken by the Company in order to protect and safeguard people and the environment. For more details, please visit: https://sustainabilityreport.alcantara.com/
Alcantara has accelerated its serious path towards special versions of its material mated with increasing amounts of bio-based polymers and recycled polyester. Alcantara pays extreme attention to utilize recycled polyester produced in Europe by post consumers scraps, recycled through a mechanical process, being traceable and certificated.