And for good reason: it offers designers the opportunity to reduce their environmental impact, while fighting against waste.
In fact, the World Bank estimates that the amount of waste generated globally each year will reach 3.4 billion tonnes by 2050, compared with 2.01 billion tonnes in 2016.
These staggering figures testify to the potential of this waste, whatever its origin, as a means to (re)create without having to resort to new materials.
This practice has been adopted by the fashion industry, which now recycles fabric scraps and old clothes, as well as unusual objects such as windscreens, potato chip bags, electronic cables, coffee capsules and brewing waste.
Putting fashion in the pipeline
The British brand Elvis & Kresse was embracing upcycling long before the pandemic.
Founded in 2005 by Kresse Wesling and James Henrit (nicknamed “Elvis”), the label was created after a chance encounter with the London Fire Brigade.
Noting that damaged or decommissioned fire hoses were being thrown into landfills, the two co-founders simply decided to save them and transform them into luxury accessories.
It was a daring gamble that the brand has pulled off with flying colours, today boasting a wide range of bags, belts and various homeware items made from these end-of-life hoses.
On its e-commerce site, Elvis & Kresse states that not a single London fire hose has gone to landfill in over a decade.
Fire hoses may have been the brand’s starting point, but it has since broadened the scope of its recycling activities.
Parachute silk is now transformed into lining for bags and wallets, shoe boxes into labels and packaging, and banners used to advertise major auctions into the lining for larger bags.
And that’s not all, since the brand also recycles the jute bags in which coffee beans are transported, as well as printing blankets.
In 2017, it also partnered with the Burberry Foundation to re-use leather scraps from the production of items by the famous British luxury brand.
Elvis & Kresse, which donates half its profits to charities such as The Fire Fighters Charity and The Barefoot College, claims to have recovered over 300 tonnes of materials.
It’s a drop in the ocean compared to the annual amount of waste produced worldwide, but the brand’s effort reflects a desire to push back the limits of upcycling and show that the practice is by no means unfeasible on a large scale.