Even unwanted shoe boxes collected from shoe shops are flattened and used to make packaging and labels. You and I are living in a unique time where weve never had so much access to so much information and so little critical thinking going on. Its tough when youre using materials that already exist and have certain properties that make them impossible to recycle long-term. However, there are lots of materials that are virtually circular already. In order to be a good citizen in the world. It is hard, but the hustle and bustle at the workshop prove it is possible. The second pillar that Elvis & Kresse stands behind is transform. 1 Comment As soon as you mix waste, you lose value. Tackling the heavy-duty fire hose would not have been easy in terms of cleaning, repurposing and manufacturing but the founders persevered. A Technology that Drives Inclusivity and Diversity within Digital Fashion. Refresh your browser window to try again. If you want to sell your goods, these are the logos you have to use. Could. And it would be great if we had a carbon tax. (Or not! Similarly, Elvis & Kresse invest time and attention in making the materials more valuable than they were at any point in their previous life. Everything that theyre spewing has been disproven. Monty, the resident dog and also a model for Elvis & Kresse collars joined the discussion as a rather solemn participant. Unaware I would later endure this transcription process and hear myself as a pile of goo journalist over the phone with this marvelous lady! justmax Computers and smartphones are Franken products because they are assembled in such a way that you cannot take them apart, you cannot extract the original raw materials and you cannot repair them. The beauty of Elvis & Kresse is how they think about materials creatively and find a purpose for them that may be so different from their original purpose that it was never imagined before. Excited to take them up on their offer FashNerd Editor-in-chief Muchaneta suggested that I go, and in a heartbeat, I happily accepted. And sometimes that comes from a negative experience and sometimes that comes from a positive experience. I wanted to know if B-Corp status was reserved solely for businesses that are already well-established or if a small entrepreneur in planning stages could reach for access. And for someone like me, who has spent all her time working in a corporate setup, it took me a while to wrap my head around what these people do and still make money. Why dont we have that kind of system everywhere? Elvis & Kresse products start at around 45 for a belt and 200 for bags. After the provocative inquiry, I apologized for delving us into such grim topics! And 50% of your profits have to be redistributed. Another fabric that Elvis & Kresse have started to use is parachute silk, which is unusable after getting small tears. I think that sharing detailed stories about life experience can offer something to improve critical thinking, at least for people who are able to read the story.. Conducting this interview was one of my first journalistic experiences in a flurry of opportunity that unfolded in the early spring of 2021. I couldnt wait to learn more about the incredible people behind Elvis & Kresse. One year later in 2022, I have started my own raw materials rescue mission called the Small Action Foundation to collect raw materials and financial aid for small business who share the mission to regenerate global health & justice against extraction, including my own small brand Tahoe Bikinis and my new yarn brand Small Action Co. fabric spaghetti. There are lots of people that I meet who came to sustainability at the time that they had children, because they were looking at these kids and looking at the world and going, oh my gosh, I need to make the world better for my children. Thats when they had their epiphany. It is definitely my youth: dont leave a trace and leave things as you found them. But actually, I dont think thats my responsibility anymore; if I leave this world as I found it now, thats a failure. Thats great! Yes. The same fate awaits composites such as tea and coffee sacks, printing blankets and parachute silk and leather off-cuts from the fashion industry. She added, Initially people thought this was our hobby. The train journey was followed by a short car ride that took me to the doorstep of the workshop-cum-office-cum-residence of Elvis & Kresse. Customary at this point for me to be rendered speechless, I finally start to laugh Now youre going to have a language education consultant in New York City writing about you having coined the phrase Franken materials. I realized in that moment early on that her answers were going to be extraordinary no matter how (poorly) my questions came out. The final pillar is donate. In addition to the upcycling process, the brand donates 50% of its profits to charities like the Firefighters Charity, WWF, Help for Heroes, Comic Relief and the British Forces Foundation. You get to see where your food comes from and it also offers visitors the chance to connect with the farmers. Even after we discovered the fire hose and fell in love with it, we tried roof tiles and furniture We were looking for primarily industrial reuse applications. If you went to a landfill right now, you would find that its basically a monstrous situation because we put all of these incredibly beautiful materials together in the ground making them impossible to separate and their value is lost. I hadnt seen shopping on that scale. In October 2017, Elvis & Kresse entered into a 5-year partnership with the Burberry Foundation. People have to have these epiphanies. The five-year partnership will see Elvis & Kresse receiving a grant from the Burberry foundation and reusing a minimum of 120 tons of leather scraps Burberry products for accessories and homeware. Fashion Brands, Ready for a One-stop Guide To Accelerate Your Sustainable Transformation with Digital Traceability? And that sounds completely rational and certainly should be If we could go back in time and change one thing, I think that might be the thing I change: that shareholder capitalism didnt ever take off. For the first few seconds, it felt like I had travelled back in time where it was common for one to enter an atelier with warmly lit wooden interiors, dotted with second-hand machines. While soaking in the picturesque English countryside, I encountered stacks of coiled red and yellow fire hoses, that in their first life probably put out fires and saved lives in London. elvisandkresse Im now obliged to have an impact. tote elvis kresse ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Leather off-cuts from Burberrys production are transformed into sellable items such as handbags and carpets. In these conscientious times, wearing fur is indeed outdated and its finally possible to banish the need for real fur styles. Kresse explained, My design brief to Elvis was to design for deconstruction. But instead of letting the fabric head to the landfill, the brand realized its potential as a lining for their fire-hose bags and wallets. So theyre Franken goods. Leave feedback about your eBay ViewItem experience, Elvis & Kresse Pink Tote Bag Tooley Purse Burberry Leather Reclaim Sustainable, - eBay Money Back Guarantee - opens in a new window or tab, Elvis & Kresse Pink Tote Bag Tooley Purse Burberry Leather Reclaim Sustainable, - for PayPal Credit, opens in a new window or tab, Learn more about earning points with eBay Mastercard, - eBay Return policy - opens in a new tab or window, - eBay Money Back Guarantee - opens in a new tab or window. WWD and Women's Wear Daily are part of Penske Media Corporation. maiyet kresse The company still needs to perfect the casting methods but aims to launch a range including items such as belt buckles from rescued aluminium cans by late 2021 using the solar forge. Were supposed to be really creative and wonderful, intelligent beings. An initial attempt at brevity devolved into rambling about waste in the flower industry in New York City and a widening scope of pollution solution-oriented business ideas. Recipients have been the Fire Fighters Charity, and the Barefoot College which helps train female solar engineers. Not many. When we decided to tackle the much, much larger leather problem, we knew we would need a brave partner, saidKresse Wesling, cofounder of Elvis & Kresse. We also had some people that out and out rejected it. Polymers, once we get the processes right, are actually perpetually recyclable, but some things that arent are the natural materials. She described herself as a biophile and then had to acknowledge that sadly, not everyone is open to experiencing an epiphany like that: Some people are really closed-minded. Realistically, I looked at all kinds of materials and any one of those could have been what we focused on. I went from a small town in Canada to an enormous city-state and Hong Kong is much more consumption-driven. ORDRE is now available in the following languages: Elvis & Kresse has been redefining luxury by transforming landfill waste into accessories since 2005. Then, they utilize a refined method to piece together hides large enough to create limited edition collections like my favorite lipstick red Fire and Hide tote featured in the title image. Elvis & Kresse also use reclaimed material such as tea and coffee sacks, printing blankets and military grade parachute silk for its products and packaging. Elvis & Kresse have partnered with the Burberry Foundation to repurpose leather scraps wasted in the luxury fashion production process. So when they say that cans are 100% recyclable, thats a fib the fraction that is aluminum is recyclable, but the thermoset resin just burns off in the melting process when the metal gets recycled, so its just not true. B-Corps are quite different, Kresse explained. Im doing this forge project at the moment, and we thought that aluminum cans were made of aluminum, but theyre 30% thermoset resin. This is a flat earth issue. Elvis & Kresse pledges to donate 50% of its profits to charities. So (laughing) we should be able to sort this out! Amid waste hunting, one material that caught Kresses fancy big-time was leather. You could talk to anyone regarding waste and they would tell you the UN report is a low estimate because there are so many companies that do not report on their waste at all. While the doors at the Elvis & Kresse workshop are always open for drop-ins, the team hosts specials on an ongoing basis to help people cherish and appreciate raw materials. Half of the profits from this range will be donated to charitable causes focused on renewable energy, while the other half will be reinvested by Elvis & Kresse to expand its work in reducing and reusing waste and inspiring craftspeople. And that was harder [back then than it might be today]. Ive always wanted to be responsible for something like that. Not everything is a success, but everything can be something you learn from. Ready To Push The Boundaries of Social Commerce? HEADLINES: Brands who deserve your dollars: Elvis & Kresse. kresse cycled recycled How badass!). Whereas farming historically were mixed farms where fertilizer was all produced on site by small amounts of livestock. I hadnt seen single-use goods on that scale. And everybody was happy with it! Tags: burberry, elvis & kresse, leather, recycling. He said the company will lead the way in showing how creativity and craftsmanship can play a part in solving this issue.. Truly a cutting edge company (pun intended), Elvis & Kresse has a heart and a soul, challenging the growing sustainability issues of a fickle fashion industry, while incorporating innovative craftsmanship, by employing the skills of craftsman and training apprentices. We prefer boutiques because they understand that we dont do seasons or collections thats not how our products are made and that's not the world we want to support., Working with large retailers doesnt interest Elvis & Kresse, a resolve which strengthened after a successful Harrods pop-up a few years ago. All of their products come with a 1-year warranty. You can scale and remain focused on high-quality hand-craftsmanship. Universal Pictures one of their set designers wanted a leather wall. Sign up for WWD news straight to your inbox every day. I wanted to turn my crochet beachwear into a zero waste and philanthropic brand for the environment and firefighters in CA and I was beginning to reach more awesome people working on similar missions but not many, and none quite like what I was seeing for the first time here. Youd have to take your goods to a certification body and theyd have to say, Yap, you dont pay people well enough and youre destroying the environment. She made me laugh with her, even over the downright grim topics we were covering, and feel more relaxed as the interview carried on. When youre a kid, you just know the natural wonder of the world. A lot of people who argue very binary terms tend to overlook the complexity. Its a certification that looks at 5 aspects of what you do: (You receive points based on how your business behaves and have to receive a minimum level of points in order to be certified as a B-corp. Every time you re-certify, youre also expected to have an increasing number of points. Tech-infused Moments During Fashion Week That You Might Have Missed. People need to have an epiphany with nature. I remember one company who gave us a bag of leather waste and first brought that issue to our attention. I have partnered with Sunshine Trims in NYC to help transform their business into a zero waste operation as a demonstration for others to follow suit. We had to explain to people why rescued material made more sense than a new material. Preferring to work with independent boutiques rather than department stores, they have select stockists in the UK, Europe, Dubai and Australia. From fire hoses, the pair began scouring landfill sites to salvage parachute silk, auction banners, printing blankets and tea and coffee sacks discarded products which have been given new life lining bags or packaging products. Elvis learned to sew. James House. They wanted to know when we were going to produce different colourways, and we realised their business model didnt match our ethics, Wesling explains. Conversation With the Team Behind Third Generation Revolutionary Innovation The Hvding. Small Action Co. yarn will be available for makers this August 2022 at Knits & Knots Tahoe in South Lake Tahoe, CA and Knit & Knots Minden in Minden, NV. Being a B-Corp means that you have to legally sign up to these ideas. Or there are some people lets say in the fashion industry whose epiphany came when we had the Rana Plaza disaster. It was just piles of melted, biodegrading goo! Rather than shipping that waste to the UK, Kresse spoke of solving the problem at the source. So, we had an open studio and open question time. How did you physically do it all at first? (Speechless again.) On the imperfect beginnings of developing a creative small business: Sometimes you can get hung up on thinking you have to come up with the perfect idea first when actually, there are no perfect ideas; its an evolution. Stella McCartney x Bolt Threads, Take-Two. Can you speak to this?. After 5 phone calls, we realized it was a BIG issue. Our system is labour intensive, and we are proud of the many ways that it can create meaningful, living wage employment. The Burberry partnership includes a yearly grant of 100,000 to cover the hiring of more apprentices into the business. And actually I have flipped that campsite phrase on its head a little bit in recent years. A proponent of an open-door policy British label, Elvis & Kresse invited FashNerd.com to pop over to visit their workshop to see how they operate. Your business has to have, as its essential purpose, the solving of an environmental or social problem. Meanwhile, having finished his telethon, Elvis came downstairs to check on the preparation for an evening event at the workshop where the visitors will learn to design and assemble a bespoke leather rug. Now, people think its great. At the heart of this solution is another British label, albeit one slightly less well known, Elvis & Kresse. With philanthropy always in mind, 50% of the profits will be donated to charitable organizations that support renewable energy. ), What we want is companies to be incredibly wonderful citizens. three pillars: rescue, transform and donate. So thats one of the initiatives that seems to be quite common in swimwear and a lot of brands have gone down that route. Lets look at climate change, right? Its one of those situations where your eyes open up a bit wider, and then a bit wider, and a bit wider, (laughing) and then you just start to worry that youre gonna lose your mind. Thats the road that were on now and the path that we need to wean ourselves from. Determined to rescue it from landfill, Elvis & Kresse developed a unique modular approach. linksynergy sustainable kresse Since 2005 Elvis & Kresse has transformed waste materials into luxury accessories products. This is the kind of work we are made for, and this is the kind of partnership that will change the future of luxury.. These landfill-bound materials find new lives as anything from the, lining of their bags to their shipping packaging. 2022 Fairchild Publishing, LLC. (The forge project is an amazing topic I neglected to circle back to but learned about later. Then there are people whose lives are so hand to mouth so they dont necessarily have the opportunity for that. As we go forward and get deeper into circular economy, I do think thats the future. Its worth asking, what does it take to completely transform waste material into a luxury product? Immediately, it was clear that she was the best person to ask all of my questions if I could only spit them out! They dont think were radical leftist communists which is really good because this needs to become mainstream., Elvis & Kresse launched mens and womens bags and accessories in 2005, and with what was considered at the time to be a radical business model: transforming waste materials into luxury goods and then donating 50 percent of the profits to charities, it is now successfully and profitably subverting capitalism one landfill-bound scrap at a time. Elvis & Kresse: Manufacturer of luxury accessories by upcycling reclaimed materials, https://www.elvisandkresse.com/pages/three-pillars, https://www.elvisandkresse.com/pages/about-us-2, https://www.elvisandkresse.com/blogs/news, https://www.rethinkglobal.info/episode-68-kresse-wesling-elvis-kresse/, https://www.canmarketingsavetheplanet.com/podcasts/episode13-kressewesling-luxuryandsustainablebrand. You could of course go onto Kickstarter, get lots of people to back your product and launch it like that or you could get investors Thats incredibly hard for a fashion startup. The B-Corp movement started after Elvis and I incorporated, so we were of this mentality before that movement got going. Vegan consumers:Do you get questions about veganism? We will see something that no one else has seen and well be relentless in solving that problem., This is exactly what is missing: a biodiversity that allows big brands to live alongside and help to promote the wellbeing of smaller brands., Around four years ago, when the Burberry Foundation approached Elvis & Kresse to help solve their excess leather issue, the pair deemed it a challenge too great. However, we would be happy to participate in a permanent week that celebrates durability and timeless designs. fashionweek kresse I have them all the time. Photos of the Costumes in Westworld SeasonFour. Seller assumes all responsibility for this listing. Speaking of different countries, you moved from Canada to Hong Kong when you were younger Was there one striking moment in Hong Kong? Youre gonna be in the Unfair Trade, Exploitative aisle at the supermarket Good luck with that. Because people would be embarrassed to go down that aisle and those products would wither and die. Social Enterprises have existed for a long time. The company initially started with turning discarded fire-hoses into hand bags, wallets, belts and the like. We are in the process of diverting all of Sunshine Trims poly fabric waste from landfill and it is currently being transformed into fabric spaghetti for crochet bags! Over the years Id realized that too many things Ive loved and bought in my lifetime are made of pollutant material; that the stretchy material typically used for swimwear is made out of plastic, that it cannot be recycled, nor can it biodegrade properly and that it pollutes our drinking water with microplastics that are not being filtered. I think that sometimes you can get hung up on thinking you have to come up with the perfect idea first when actually there are no perfect ideas anyway and often its very much an evolution. Reports suggest textile waste that gets thrown away has a value of 2 to 3 thousand dollars a tonne. But it doesnt have coral or sharks because the water is so polluted that sharks cant hunt; they cant sense things. Currently, the brand is at an inflexion point where they are looking to scale their innovations. Jute or hessian coffee sacks are also used and large craft paper tea sacks are turned into packaging, mailing pouches and brochures.
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