We make belts - really, really comfortable belts that fit your body exactly as you are today, and exactly how you might be in a few months' or years' time.

Why? Because we’re perfectionists who expect better from our clothes. Our jeans don't fit, but regular belts aren't good enough. They're bulky and stiff. They show us what size we used to be. Also, unthreading a leather belt to do laundry or go through airport security is annoying as h-e-double-hockey-sticks.

Making someone's day is sometimes as easy as solving their littlest problem. Keeping your pants up comfortably and unfussily is our way of helping you move through the world with ease and joy.

Making a better belt was half the reason we started this business. The other half was wanting to support better apparel jobs, and to fundamentally change the relationship between clothing producers and consumers.

Unbelts are designed to minimize resource extraction and maximize worker benefit along our entire supply chain. Our suppliers pay living wages and maintain stable, long-term teams; they also use recycled input materials to make our components.

We’ve built, over the years, a supply chain that doubles back on itself so that our customers become our suppliers, too: we repair your belts through our warranty program, and divert waste by upcycling elastic offcuts and selling our “almost perfect” belts at a discounted price.

I started Unbelts from my grandmother's hometown of Shanghai, where I moved after university. By 2011, I’d lived there for three years and several pant sizes. I needed a belt, I couldn’t find a comfy one that would change with my body, and I had sewing neighbours who needed steady income. 

I put my industrial design and Mandarin Chinese degree to work. Dozens of prototypes and countless train rides to component factories later, I had a quality product and a deeper-than-ever understanding of how much human labour goes into a single product.

I now live back in Edmonton, where an awesome belt-slingin' team and I have launched a second sewing studio. As we grow, so does our purpose. I get my butt out of bed in the morning because I believe that small steps towards a bigger goal - my case, a more inclusive economy that gives more than it takes - add up.