KULILE is a responsible and committed furniture designer

Kulile has set itself a goal: To create quality furniture that serves everyday life and to do it well.

  • Kulile is pronounced “Koulilé” and means “a growing person” in Changane, a dialect of Mozambique. Because it is in this country that the story of the brand begins, in 2016. At that time, Marion Descottes, the founder of Kulile, fitted out bespoke rooms.

    Listening to the needs of her customers, Marion notes that the furniture sector is not immune to the fashion of fast-consuming (express consumption): the market offers a large number of pieces of furniture, but in addition to being impractical , they are all made on the other side of the world, with low-end materials. By creating Kulile, she wishes to respond to an urgent need: to offer her customers the opportunity to install functional furniture in their homes, adapted to everyday life and above all, made locally.

    After 2 years in Mozambique and dozens of projects carried out, Kulile moved to Portugal in 2019. Faced with social and environmental challenges, the brand's ambition grew and Marion Descottes began to forge links with Portuguese carpenters. .

    Impeccable quality, durability and fair prices have become Kulile's hallmarks.

  • Marion Descottes, fondatrice de Kulile
Croquis table de chevet de couleur

Kulile was born out of a simple desire to design beautiful furniture and objects, and to do it well. I want my creations to share our lives for a long time, because they are of high quality and functional. »

Marion Descottes, Founder of Kulile

Our team

Kulile is a team determined to build designer furniture that is beautiful, durable and suitable for everyday use.

fabricant-meuble-portugal

Our mission: Wood For Good

Kulile's mission is simple: To create quality furniture that serves everyday life and to do it well.

We started from an observation: The last decades have seen the advent of fast- consuming. From fast-food to fast-fashion (express mode) , the world of furniture has not been spared and fast-furniture or disposable furniture has made its entrance. Result: low-quality furniture, which does not resist either everyday life or fashion effects and which is produced on the other side of the world on an assembly line, has flooded the market at ultra-competitive prices.

Faced with the environmental, social and economic challenges of our time, Kulile has been built to offer a sustainable alternative to this express obsolescence market.

That's why, from design to manufacturing, our furniture is designed to last. To last, that is to say not only to resist everyday life, but also to the effects of fashion . To meet this need in a sustainable way, we have implemented an eco-design approach that allows us to rethink the durability of our furniture in a global way.

This is what we call Wood For Good.

Our approach to sustainable furniture

Wood For Good

Functionality: simple and practical

We are convinced that a durable piece of furniture is a practical and functional piece of furniture that accompanies a home throughout its life . This is why our collections consist of useful and easy-to-use furniture. Bedside table, shallow chest of drawers, storage column: Everything has been thought out so that our furniture really accompanies you in your daily life. We choose to create simple, no-frills and small-sized furniture. Their shallow depth allows you to slip them into any room, even the narrowest and those in the attic . The openings of the doors and drawers are sanded obliquely so that the grip is pleasant in addition to being practical.

The design: sober and timeless

Kulile's design is based in part on a holistic approach to interior design . Holistic decoration consists of organizing and decorating your home in such a way as to promote your well-being on a daily basis. It is expressed through different planning practices: feng shui, hygge, minimalism, etc. The objective of all these currents remains the same: to make its interior a place of serenity . This is why the design of our furniture is simple and sober. Their objective is to help you and accompany you discreetly in your daily life . Bedside table, small coffee table, storage column... you won't be able to do without Kulile furniture!

Both followers of a chic minimalist decoration and concerned with the durability of furniture, we were committed to creating elegant furniture that does not go out of fashion . Our perfect recipe for durable furniture results from a balance between sobriety and timelessness . With Kulile furniture, your home becomes a refined cocoon and your daily life is simplified.

You'll want to keep your furniture for life.

The materials: strong, durable and sourced locally

Choosing the right materials is an essential step in Wood For Good. Once the lines of the furniture have been drawn, selecting the right materials makes it possible, on the one hand, to control the environmental impact of our activity and, on the other hand, to ensure the longevity and recyclability of our products. That is why, for each product, we have thought about the use of durable, solid and maximum recyclable materials .

Our furniture is made of oak. The wood they are made of comes from sustainably managed European forests and is FSC certified (certification number FSC-C171623) . This label guarantees that our wood comes from forests whose management is sustainable, i.e. in particular, that the regular renewal of the forest is ensured, that the diversity of wood species is maintained and that the balance of the local ecosystem is preserved.

We have chosen wood as the main material for our furniture, as it has been used in furniture for centuries. It meets all the conditions that we have set ourselves as part of our Wood For Good approach: it combines quality with solidity and has ecological properties in addition to being in keeping with the aesthetics of Kulile .

European production and the short circuit

For Kulile, there was never any question of producing on the other side of the world. From the beginning, the desire to create furniture from local know-how was present. However, this is not the easy choice. Finding carpenters in France or Portugal, who share the same sustainability values ​​as us, is a challenge. However, we are very proud to offer furniture that is 100% made in Portugal or France .

Our company being located in Portugal, it was normal to turn to workshops close to home to create our collections. This allows us to travel regularly to one of our partners in the Porto region, by train or by car. In addition, woodworking is an ancestral know-how in Portugal.

With European wood, design, European manufacturing to order or in small quantities (less than 100 products), as well as 100% delivery in Europe, we make sure to reduce our environmental impact by reducing the number of intermediaries who gravitate around Kulle. By ordering your Kulile furniture directly on our website, you promote a sustainable economy.

The products: delivered already assembled

Our furniture is built to last. Thus, we have chosen a quality finish with invisible screws. Our furniture is delivered already assembled, with some exceptions, to guarantee you a professional and durable assembly.

Plus, it makes your life so much easier!

Logistics: low environmental impact

In addition to the short circuit, which already reduces the carbon footprint of our products linked to transport, we wanted to work more in depth on the logistics aspect of our activity. Therefore, we have chosen to deliver all our products already assembled, in a single package . This has the effect of reducing CO2 emissions during storage and shipping. Our packaging is made from recycled cardboard .

We have also chosen to work with courier DHL , who, in addition to treating our packages with respect, offers an eco-freight solution with low-emission delivery options and is on a mission to achieve net-zero emissions by at 2050 .

The end of life of products: a commitment and concrete actions

Because eco-design takes into account the entire life cycle of the product and the end-of-life stage is too often neglected, we wanted to offer you a real alternative for managing the end-of-life, not only Kulile furniture, but also your old furniture . That's why we partnered with Smartback. Smartback upgrades both our furniture from customer returns (which cannot be resold if they have defects), and your old furniture: no mess! The furniture is either recycled or sent to associations near you, depending on its condition. Learn more about Smartback .