Hasta La Ideas

With recording artist Amanda Palmer on lockdown in New Zealand and MacArthur “Genius” Grant-recipient Rhiannon Giddens quarantined in Ireland, the duo determined to collaborate remotely on “It’s A Fire,” an entrancing Portishead cover with a message that resonates through current circumstances the world over. Palmer tapped regular collaborator Jherek Bischoff to arrange the track from LA (where he hired local string players to record in isolation, as well). From Melbourne, Australia, French illustrator Jessica Coppet contributed scribble portraits for the album art, rounding out the global roster of talent. All profits from the collaboration will go to the Free Black University Fund.

It’s A Fire by Amanda Palmer & Rhiannon Giddens

I don’t even know where to begin with the problem of plastic pollution – it is a heavy one and in literal terms, the amount of plastic on this planet is almost the same as the weight of the entire human population. Let that sink in. Single-use plastic makes for more than 50% of the plastic waste problem and if we continue at the rate we are going right now, there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish by 2050. According to the UN Environment, one million plastic drinking bottles are purchased every minute around the world, while up to 5 trillion single-use plastic bags are used worldwide every year (read more here). In total, half of all plastic produced is designed to be used only once and then thrown away – this is a serious problem and Wenwen Fan of the Royal College of Arts is using her design abilities to do her bit in providing a solution.

Seaweed is touted as green gold by scientists who are exploring its uses as a sustainable alternative for single-use plastic. What makes it interesting is that it can be edible and has high nutritional value too! It is already a staple in Asian diets and also in skincare routines, so it was time to push the boundaries and turn these into vegan wrappers. Made from seaweed and vegetable extracts, these low-cal wrappers can be used as edible packaging for snacks and dissolvable pouches that add extra nutritional value to your food like vitamins, minerals as well as polysaccharides from that support your gut health. The seaweed extract is then dehydrated and the prototypes are examined in different temperature settings as well as tested for waterproof properties. Turtles eat seaweed and they live to be 100 so why not!?

“As a multidisciplinary experience designer, I am passionate about designing a cohesive, integrated set of experiences for behavior change. From embedding AR into an immersive Alzheimer’s simulation experience to creating sustainable edible packaging from seaweed, I believe a good experience design should be context-driven, behaviorally informed, and culturally relevant,” says Fan. The wrappers can customize for different flavors and nutritions for a more personalized product combination on Seaweed U which will be an online platform dedicated to the product. It is an ingenious way of packaging food while also being a source of soluble fiber – I see this design as a win-win with the only hurdle being the scale of mass production should a big brand adopt this packaging design. Seaweed U encourages a more convenient, playful, and pleasurable diet solution as well as reducing plastic pollution from the food industry.

There are three suggested scenarios in using these seaweed wrappers: Trick or Treat, The Lazy Pouch, and Super Chef. Trick or Treat is a healthy snack made from fruity-taste seaweed skins. Through combining a more familiar food palate like nuts and berries with the nutritional skins, it enables people to enjoy seaweed through daily snacking without being held back by the green and slimy texture. The Lazy Pouch is a single-serve, dissolvable pouch with different types of seaweed like wakame, dulse, and kelp, etc. that offers a convenient and quality meal supplement for those living a fast-paced lifestyle. Super Chef offers a creative DIY food experience in the kitchen where people can play with this versatile material in combination with ordinary ingredients to make unique dishes like transparent onigiris, ice cream raviolis, and colorful spring rolls.

We all know eating a more plant-based diet has a direct impact on climate change and seaweed can be of great help. According to scientists, building seaweed farming networks on just 9% of the world’s ocean could offset carbon emission entirely – that can buy us more time to focus on the larger plastic problem. Seaweed U aims to help people feel comfortable with different superfoods that add immense benefits to their health as well as the health of our planet.

Designer: Wenwen Fan

A denim industry icon’s 8,000-piece database of garments from all over the world

Apparel brand Atelier & Repairs rebukes fashion industry waste and our throw-away culture. Maurizio Donadi, the label’s founder and creative director, thoughtfully upcycles vintage denim, outerwear, T-shirts and more—oftentimes embellishing them with patches, paint splatter and elegant marks of wear. Given his long history in the denim industry (including Ralph Lauren, Benetton and Levi’s) and insatiable desire for experimentation, Donadi has accumulated quite the collection of vintage and reworked garments, including plenty of Atelier & Repairs pieces that never made it to the brand’s online store. As such, he’s debuting Transnomadica, a shoppable online archive of 8,000+ pieces from around the world that showcases his vast and varied personal inventory.

“Transnomadica, this website, I was cooking it for a long time—because vintage has always been important in my life and it’s trendy, and there are a lot of people doing it, but I wanted to do it in a way that was more like an art gallery because that’s the way I see vintage,” Donadi tells CH. “I don’t see it as rolling racks with 200 pieces. You cannot even see what’s going on there. And [my idea is] doing vintage where every item is actually a good item.”

While the Transnomadica project does offer an online store full of covetable and rare denim from Japan and beyond, it’s also as much a source of inspiration as it is incentive to splurge. Seeing Donadi’s collection might challenge you to survey your own more closely—what’s in it, where did it come from, what will it mean to you and to others in 20 years? There are also home experiments with dye and bleach, and blog musings on colors. And if it is modeled after a gallery, one could call this collection of all things blue its first show. (We know Donadi has a huge collection of vintage military wear so perhaps “green” will be the next exhibition.)

“I had a gallery space in my mind and I went in, and I looked at my archive and certain obsessions that I had in my accumulation of clothes. In general, [they] were not necessarily driven by age, but by the aesthetic of it,” Donadi tells us. “And so I never really accumulated Levi’s for example, or Lee or Wrangler, which is the first step for every vintage or denim aficionado. And I’m convinced that the best jeans ever made in the last 30 years were not American, but they were Japanese.”

Donadi’s opinions on denim manifest as collections within Transnomadica. From “Made in Japan” and “Osaka 5” to “Made in the US” and “Home Experiments,” all of the entries were carefully selected. But Donadi’s expertise isn’t just in the aesthetics of these products. He’s knowledgable of changes in the industry, trends and styles that came and went and the markers of long-lasting, durable denim.

“Maybe 10 or 15 years ago I started to find and collect and look at these beautiful jeans,” he says. “The Japanese were very unsatisfied with American denim—and I think Japan was the second largest Levi’s market after the US. They were crazy about it, but denim connoisseurs saw the declining quality and the lack of gratuity from American companies. So they say, ‘Why don’t we reproduce the old jeans?’ With that obsession, they went to denim mills and they said, ‘Let’s reproduce those fabrics and even add quality to them.’ They were making 14 pieces a week. The Japanese did it so well; they became totally captured by the idea of doing something better than the original.”

Donadi admires the obsessive tendencies that produced this exquisite denim, and accepts that this same passion drives his own work. “It became an obsession of mine,” he tells us, about Transnomadica. “OK, I have this [archive], and I need to finally sit down and try to make sense of it, how it should be. I created a mood board for myself. I created a presentation deck to sell to myself, and said to myself, ‘Is this valid, is this unique, is this helpful? Does this speak to any person? Does this speak to a creative director? Does it speak to an architect, or a clothing designer? Is it humble enough?’”

“I want to do something for the people that will not buy, that will just look at it like a window to something that they might be interested in or not. I want them to stop and say, ‘OK, I don’t want anything from here, but interesting. That is the person I had in mind when I built this,” Donadi continues.

Alongside Japanese jeans, Donadi offers Japanese poetry. With American entries, he includes quotes from politicians and industrial designers. “This is about more than the product,” he says of the choice. It’s his way of offering inspiration or starting points and context. The imagery included conveys the complexity of each piece; the photos detail each product like artworks poised for auction.

“On the site is a small part of what I have,” Donadi laughs. If customers come to Transnomadica and track him down, he’s happy to search through his untouched troves for something specific they may desire. “It’s a new way of doing retail, and I enjoy it very much,” he says. Eventually, he adds, Transnomadica will act as a marketplace—one comprised of his own pieces and those from others with collector-friendly denim and other garments to sell. For now, however, Donadi will continue to supply the shop with his own items, even if it means sentimental goodbyes for each one.

The first step for a greener world is to use what we have

“I have maybe 100 pieces I will never sell. They’re part of my life—maybe I’ll give them to my kids, I don’t know—because they are of greater value financially or emotionally,” he says. “But I’m looking at this as an opportunity to share. I did my research, I enjoyed it, I used it for work, I used it for my own inspiration and now it’s available. But it’s not that I want to sell what I have and then be closed. I want to bring in other people that have similar passions. Let’s build something big where everybody can benefit. We’re going back to circularity and sustainability. The first step for a greener world is to use what we have. And I’m not saying stop doing stuff—continue to do stuff of quality—but I feel that my contribution is not in developing a new organic cotton. My contribution is using what we already have made, that is of quality and can last another 10, 20, 30 years.”

Images courtesy of Maurizio Donadi / Transnomadica

Artist-led non-profit organization For Freedoms (co-founded by Hank Willis Thomas and Eric Gottesman) encourages creative public engagement, conversation and action in all areas of civic concern. Part of their Infinite Game project, the dynamically designed and easy to follow Infinite Playbook outlines various ways we can make change—from planning protests to hosting virtual town halls, posting public art and registering to vote. Another element of the initiative exists as apparel and sticker packs to help spread the word. Our favorite, the white long-sleeve, offers Infinite Game’s mission in bullet points, along with (wryly) the URL for the playbook. It’s available in size XS to XXL and intended for all genders.

If you are a coffee addict then you will feel excited about new appliances that increase the joy you feel when brewing! This conceptual coffee machine is very unlike the espresso makers in the market and it’s the aesthetics that set it apart. It is a dream machine for people who love coffee and space exploration equally (like me!).

The compact capsule shape makes it look like a moon lander for your counter and is obviously powered by caffeine which is only the second most powerful fuel after rocket fuel! The designer’s main focus was to retain some of the rawness and the mechanical steampunk look of the traditional Italian espresso makes while maintaining a clean shape that adds character to the product. There is a tubular water/steam container at the back which I feel can be extended down for added support for the appliance. There is also another container for your beans which I assume leads to a small grinder mechanism inside so you only get the freshest cup of joe each time. Overall, the shape is very unique and combines the nostalgic steampunk elements with clean, smooth curves for a balanced modern machine.

I almost feel like this should come with a voice feature that does a countdown to when your coffee is ready. “I’ve always been fascinated with those big chrome machines that almost looked like a small lab, it made me think about how we perceive coffee now when the whole ritual is being reduced to a capsule and a press of a button. When sitting down to settle on my concept I thought how can I incorporate this love for mechanical and tactile looking objects, with an updated clean look? Can I make a coffee machine that looks scientific but also has a cute character?” says Yehuda. T – 10 seconds till I have my second (or fourth) cup!

Designer: Roee Ben Yehuda