News / Upcycling
First look at streetwear created from Bedminster hot air balloons
A capsule collection of handmade bags made from repurposed hot air balloon fabric is due to launch on March 1.
Rerun Streetwear, the brand behind the messenger bags that has been working in the upcycling space for six years, says the collection is “a homage to our home city and sustainability”.
The materials came from Cameron Balloons – the world’s largest manufacturer of man-carrying balloons, based in Bedminster.
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The designs pay tribute to the hot air balloon construction and form, and the bags – intended to be stylish but also hard-wearing and practical – have been tested by cyclists and skaters.
Working with the slippy ripstop fabric was a “real challenge” said Toby Thorpe, Rerun’s co-founder. “I can see now why we’ve not seen it done before” he added.
Rerun took on the project in order to stretch their creativity and explore upcycling outside of typical clothing fabrics.
“The scraps came in large random bags, so it was a fun challenge to work resourcefully to create desirable colourways with whatever we happened to get,” said designer Theo Fort-Schaale. “I love this way of working with creative limitations vs having too many choices when sourcing virgin fabrics!”
Designer Theo worked hard to limit waste and make the bags easily repairable by consumers at home
Fort-Schaale explained the bag’s design is intended to be simple, without compromising performance, in order to enable consumers to make repairs themselves, if needed, with a domestic sewing machine.
“Naturally when cutting patterns there are off-cuts which is why we broke down the main pattern into smaller, and later smaller, parts to minimize waste – the end goal would be to even use the scraps in a design,” explained Fort-Schaale.
“Each colourway has a selection of different colour shades so future repairs add to the design instead of standing out too much.”
For their launch photo shoot, Rerun wanted to reference the fabric’s past life, so they filled the bags with helium
“Hopefully we can inspire others to pick up a sewing machine and explore work from non-virgin fabrics, and also prove you can create hard-wearing technical items from old fabrics domestically,” added Toby. “The only non-upcycled component in this product is the thread.”
All photos: Rerun
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