INTERVIEW: Marta Vinhas is the founding father of Sensihemp, a regenerative vogue model from Portugal that works completely with hemp. With 20 years of expertise within the textile trade, she created Sensihemp in 2021 to problem quick vogue via round design, native craftsmanship, and sustainable supplies. Primarily based in Póvoa de Varzim, Portugal, her model gained prime honors at Madrid’s Round Sustainable Vogue Week this yr, and is gaining recognition throughout Europe for its dedication to moral sourcing, circularity, and designs utilizing hemp textiles.
HempToday: Let’s begin along with your latest win in Madrid. What does the award from the Round Sustainable Vogue Week imply for you personally and for Sensihemp?
Marta Vinhas: This award is a large milestone for Sensihemp. Personally, it’s a deep validation of my determination to go away the quick vogue trade and begin over with a purpose-driven model. It additionally introduced a way of hope, hope for a greater future, not only for Sensihemp, however for the function hemp can play in reworking vogue.
What makes it much more significant is that I’ve by no means acquired any monetary assist for this mission. Every part was constructed with my very own assets, step-by-step. Years of analysis, growth, and experimentation—all self-funded—had been important to carry hemp into the style world in a severe, credible method.
For Sensihemp, this recognition exhibits that regenerative and round vogue may be lovely, modern, and related. The award has opened new doorways for collaboration and visibility, and it’s serving to to place hemp the place it belongs: on the coronary heart of a extra sustainable vogue future.
HT: Stroll us via how hemp strikes via your system—from uncooked materials to completed garment. The place is your hemp sourced, how is it processed, and the way do you keep your zero-waste, regenerative values all through?
MV: I supply the hemp primarily from European suppliers, particularly France and Romania, the place the crop is grown with out pesticides and with minimal water. They use mechanical, low-impact processes to extract the fiber. The design and manufacturing occur domestically in Portugal, with a powerful give attention to minimal waste, scraps are reused in equipment or workshops. I associate with artisans for pure dyeing and small-scale manufacturing, which helps me preserve management of environmental and social impression.
HT: Given the dearth of commercial hemp textile processing in Portugal, what are the most important challenges in your provide chain—and the way are you navigating them?
MV: The most important problem is the disconnect between Portuguese hemp cultivation and textile processing. Whereas Portugal has glorious circumstances and rising curiosity in cultivating hemp, we nonetheless lack the infrastructure to rework the uncooked plant into high-quality textile fiber at scale. This creates logistical and price boundaries and makes native sourcing troublesome.
From 2018 to 2023, I used to be one of many organizers of Cannadouro, the worldwide hemp honest in Porto, which allowed me to attach with many key gamers in Portugal’s agro-industrial hemp sector. With 20 years of expertise within the textile trade, I even have robust relationships in that world. My function has naturally develop into one among constructing bridges between these two sectors—encouraging collaboration and serving to to create a shared language and imaginative and prescient for a regenerative future.
To navigate the present gaps, I work with trusted companions throughout Europe and give attention to retaining our provide chain small, clear, and aligned with our values. On the identical time, I proceed to advocate for funding in native regenerative processing infrastructure, which I imagine is essential for the way forward for hemp textiles in Portugal.
Hemp fashions by Sensihemp
HT: You’ve expanded right into a girls’s line along with your new assortment. What sorts of items are on this line, and who’s your ideally suited buyer?
MV: The brand new assortment options timeless, snug items designed to adapt to completely different events and existence. I created modular, reversible clothes.
The gathering consists of fluid knitwear comprised of hemp blends, and showcases artisanal methods resembling upcycling. I reused manufacturing scraps from earlier Sensihemp collections, giving them a second life via upcycling. I additionally launched handcrafted knitwear items to carry again the worth of know-how and have fun the fantastic thing about sluggish, intentional craftsmanship.
The Sensihemp ideally suited buyer is somebody who values authenticity, sustainability, and craftsmanship. She desires to put on one thing that displays her ethics with out compromising on consolation, performance, or type.
HT: Your work blends conventional craftsmanship with forward-looking sustainability. How do you choose your artisan companions and collaborators?
MV: I search for artisans who share a respect for nature, cultural heritage, and honest labor. Lots of them are primarily based in rural areas of Portugal and work with methods like hand-weaving, embroidery, or botanical dyeing. It’s essential that the collaboration feels mutual and significant, a lot of them co-create with me from the early design phases. I see these partnerships as important to retaining each our craft and our ecosystems alive.
HT: You’re clearly devoted to neighborhood and schooling. How do your upcycling workshops and restore occasions tie into your model mission—and have they influenced your design course of?
MV: These workshops are a option to interact straight with the neighborhood and go on data about circularity and sustainability. They reinforce the concept vogue may be participative, not simply consumptive. I’ve realized quite a bit from contributors’ creativity. It jogs my memory that one of the best design options are sometimes present in simplicity and reuse. This has influenced how I strategy new collections, extra adaptable items, modular parts, and built-in longevity.
HT: How are you constructing consciousness for hemp vogue? What’s working for you by way of advertising and marketing, branding, and buyer engagement?
MV: Elevating consciousness is among the core missions of Sensihemp. Past digital communication, I actively take part in roundtables, sustainability occasions, faculty consciousness periods, and public talks. I additionally participate in native gala’s and markets the place I interact straight with folks. These face-to-face conversations are highly effective alternatives to demystify hemp, I typically clarify that the fiber utilized in textiles comes from the stalk, not the flower, and that no, you’ll be able to’t smoke a hemp costume! Many individuals are nonetheless shocked to be taught this.
On social media, storytelling works very nicely—we present the method, the folks behind the items, and the environmental advantages of hemp. I additionally spotlight not simply the standard and efficiency of hemp textiles, however their wider socio-economic significance, particularly within the context of regenerative agriculture and rural growth. It’s about connecting the fabric to a deeper function.
HT: What do you see as the most important obstacles to creating hemp extra mainstream in European vogue? What would assist transfer the sector ahead?
MV: The principle boundaries are lack of infrastructure, misinformation, and resistance to alter throughout the trade. Hemp nonetheless suffers from an outdated stigma and is commonly misunderstood as tough or restricted in use. What would assist? Training, funding in processing expertise, and showcasing profitable, trendy examples. If main gamers adopted hemp with transparency and creativity, the notion would shift sooner.
HT: Trying forward, what are the following huge steps for Sensihemp? Are you exploring new product classes, markets, or partnerships?
MV: Proper now, I’m making ready to relaunch the e-commerce and searching for monetary assist to assist take Sensihemp to the following degree. Till now, I’ve been constructing this mission totally alone, so one of many key steps forward is forming a devoted group and creating significant collaborations with manufacturers or designers who share my values round sustainability, circularity, and regenerative practices.
I additionally intend to remain deeply concerned with the hemp neighborhood in Portugal. I’m at present organizing the Hemp Fiber Lab in collaboration with 7Irmãs and Social Weed, a cultural and academic occasion that can happen June 20–22. Over three days, we’ll discover the complete hemp cycle, from seed to garment, via a wealthy program of hands-on workshops, talks, and demonstrations. The purpose shouldn’t be solely to showcase hemp’s potential, however to foster dialogue, knowledge-sharing, and community-building round this highly effective plant.
For me, Sensihemp has all the time been greater than a vogue label, it’s a platform to regenerate methods, reconnect folks to supplies, and construct a future rooted in care.
HT: What does success seem like for you 5 years from now?
MV: Success would imply seeing a thriving community of hemp growers, artisans, and designers working collectively domestically, supported by a neighborhood of aware customers. I need Sensihemp to be acknowledged as a reference in regenerative vogue, not just for the items created, however for the best way they’re created, rooted in ethics, ecology, and collaboration.
I hope to stay deeply linked to the land, to the folks I work with, and to the aim that drives this mission. And naturally, I need Sensihemp to be financially sustainable, to generate sufficient revenue to continue to grow, assist a group, and proceed fulfilling our mission in a stable, impartial method.
