Recently opened at Paris’ The Carpenters Workshop Gallery, photographer-turned-designer Stuart Haygarth’s “Play” showcases fascinating pieces of furniture, from lighting to tables. Upon first blush, the British designer’s sculptural works appear as…
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With her latest book “ReFashioned: Cutting-Edge Clothing From Upcycled Materials,” author and fashion expert Sass Brown has demonstrated two basic things. First: Sustainability is not a mere communication phenomenon,…
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Private jets epitomize luxury for being convenient and, most importantly, supremely expensive. But Nextant Aerospace in Cleveland, Ohio has cut the cost of a small jet in half with the Nextant 400XT. Instead of starting from scratch, the company takes an inefficient jet and upcycles it into something new,…
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Italian naval blankets and deadstock linen in an upcycled coat from Denham
Found recently in a London boutique, the Orkney DGL jacket by Denham is an outerwear piece with a fascinating story. Denham—a Dutch studio focused on denim products—keeps a substantial archive of vintage clothing and sourced the design from a number of styles, although the most immediate influence comes from…
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One-of-a-kind upcycled safari jackets handmade in LA for our safari guests
For our first Cool Hunting Edition travel experience we brought 24 friends and readers on safari in Zambia. Over the course of eight days CH Zambia guests experienced the wonders and wildlife of Africa with a few surprises from our brand partners. More stories and videos here. As soon…
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Publish gives cutting-floor scraps a new life in a collection of men’s basics
With a brand motto of “Today for Tomorrow,” LA’s Publish focuses on providing garments that are sustainable in terms of both design longevity and environmentally supportive production practices. To support this goal, Publish is launching the first collection as part of their Second Chance program, a resourceful initiative to…
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Hand crafted leather saddles from a fashion design professor turned bespoke upholsterer
Known to the cycling community as one of the premier bespoke bicycle upholsterers around, Australia’s Busyman Bicycles shines through custom craftsmanship in an industry salivating for specialized components. As the brains and braun behind the one man operation, Mick Peel turns regular old saddles into custom masterpieces by hand upholstering with traditional tools and a level of knowhow only earned through years of tinkering. His precise, and often intricate designs extend from classic perforations to perfectly mainicured letters and logos.
With a BA and MA in fashion desgin, nearly twenty years of lecturing on the subject and a sizable stint as head of the fashion design program at Melbourne’s RMIT University, Peel’s experience with elaborate pattern making and knowledge of functional design made for the perfect pathway into the world of custom saddle making. And as if his educational experience weren’t enough, Peel also did a fair amount of graphic design for Adidas Australia in the 1990s and has dabbled in furniture design here and there as well.
Regardless of the discipline at hand, Peel feels his knack for design comes from simply doing. “I do design by making. My knowledge of materials and techniques and the memory accumulated in my hands through crafting have become very much my tools and method of designing. In my practice designing and making are not separate things.”
As one would imagine working with a wide range of saddle designs means finding just the right materials to get the job done. As Peel points out, each leather has it’s own different characteristics and properties. Sheep is extremely soft and easily stretched but can be quite fragile, whereas cow leather is generally more balanced in terms of mold-ability, strength and durability. “My favourite material is definitely vegetable tanned, full grain kangaroo skin. It moulds more easily than cow skin and performs much better in both tensile strength and abrasion resistance. I will always choose kangaroo if it meets the specifications of the job at hand.”
While the expertly crafted saddles are Peel’s specialty, he also dabbles in crafting custom handlebar tape and other specialized bicycle components. For a closer look at Peel’s handy work see the slideshow below and keep an eye on the often updated Busyman Bicycles blog.
Repurposed skateboards and recycled cutting boards handmade in Southern California
by Liz Cebron
On a recent visit to the made in America brand collaborative Shelter Half, we discovered Stormy Monday Goods—thoughtfully repurposed and redesigned skate and cutting boards, branded with a simple thundercloud and given a second shot at life. These one-of-a-kind creations are the labor of love of Neil Harrison, a Southern California native who, after nearly two decades in the industry—first at Quiksilver, then helping friends get a “little brand” called Volcom off the ground—decided to slow down and work with his hands.
Stormy Monday was conceived during a trip to Portland in late 2006—Harrison was in the Pacific Northwest visiting friends, one of whom had reshaped a couple of used skateboards and was drawing on them as an art project. Harrison made one for himself and after that, he was hooked. “I was really into the idea of re-shaping a board—not only because it gave me the opportunity to work with my hands, but also from a conceptual standpoint—I liked the idea that a used board could get back on the road again, so to speak.” Upon returning to Southern California, Harrison started collecting used boards from his friends in the skate world, team managers and team riders, who tended to have stacks of used boards laying around and with the underlying ethos of “Recycle, repurpose, reuse,” Stormy Monday was born.
First is my least favorite part, stripping off the grip tape. Some tape is friendly and peels off in one to three pieces. Sometimes it breaks into a million bits and pieces. Once the grip is removed, I trace a shape pattern on to the board and cut it out. Then I smooth out the edges and brand the “3 Bolt Storm Cloud” logo on to the boards. Next is staining, painting and completing the rails and wheel wells. The wheel wells are one of the trickiest parts because you’re doing one at a time and you have to match them to each other as close as you can. Sometimes I’ll let boards sit for a little while before I do this part as I try to get myself psyched up to do them—you can ruin the board very easily after all that work. Each board is then number stamped, signed and logged in the book. Every board to date has been logged, including the cutting boards and now our surfboards (dropping this spring).
The process of creating cutting boards or cheese boards is very similar to the skateboards. I work out of my friends’ woodshop in Santa Ana and sometimes they have woods that are deemed “undesirable” for cabinets because of knots, sap or mineral streaks. I’ll also find scrap wood that someone leaves out on their yard for pick up. If I can’t find any wood via those two sources I’ll go to the lumber yard and buy their “damaged” wood. It’s perfect because those characteristics or flaws in the wood make our boards interesting looking and unique.
It certainly wasn’t on purpose to have them in the mix. It was a happy accident if you will, and they have only come to be part of the mix somewhat recently. It was only after I saw some scrap woods that I thought I could make nice cutters for some friends and after making a few, realized how much fun it was working on them. Then I thought it’d be funny to add to the skateboard order form.
After that, I started getting orders from friends and then eventually stores. There’s the whole thing that’s happening right now where people want to know the story behind the product and/or know the person or persons who are making them and I think that’s what’s great about where we’re going as a country, not as whole, but on this very intimate underground level and it seems to be slowly effecting the grander consuming audience.
The logo and name were inspired on that same visit to Portland. Jake had a simple cloud painting that he had made. It was a puffy cloud with three bolts of lightning floating beneath it and the word Monday at the bottom. So Monday was the original name, then I added Stormy to make it sound heavier. I started working up stylized versions of Jake’s cloud painting—I wanted it to have a Native American look and vibe to it, like a modern version or a petroglyph. Simple, strong and to the point.
I was born in Bellflower and grew up in Buena Park—home of Knott’s Berry Farm. My mom loved to go to the beach and she would take us to the OP Pro, which, at the time, was the big surf contest in Huntington Beach. I was just boogie boarding then but after watching the guys surfing in the contest that was all I wanted to do. I was starting to skate around this time and honestly don’t remember how or who turned me on to it but it just found me. Skating was obviously more obtainable for an inland kook such as myself, so I was a skater first, surfer second. We had this ditch behind a drive-in that was close to my house and we skated that thing every day—it’s all I could think about in class! We were surfing the ditch walls before we learned how to surf real waves.
After I graduated high school in 1988, I moved to the beach and my friend got me a job working in the warehouse at Quiksilver. Over the next couple of years, I went from the warehouse to the art department, and then into the design dept. Around ’92 I left Quik and took up with some new friends to get the brand Volcom off the ground. I worked there as design and art director for about 15 years and left in 2006. I laid low for a few years, worked on an avocado grove I owned with some family at the time, and did some freelance design art projects here and there. Then last year my friend Danny called and asked if I’d like to stop fooling around and turn Stormy Monday into a proper brand. And here we are.
Stormy Monday currently sells skate decks for $125 and completes for $225 through Shelter Half, with denim and Hawaiian made surfboards on the horizon. For direct ordering and more information see Stormy Monday directly.
Man-made materials outfit a series of wildlife sculptures from Rachel Denny
Making a name for herself by way of her “domestic trophies“, Rachel Denny reinterprets the impact of human contact with the natural world in her sculptures. Her wool and cashmere-coated faux-taxidermy creatures represent our instinct to remake that world in our image, an extension of carefully groomed gardens and domesticated animals. Her upcoming solo show “Works of Nature” at Foster/White Gallery in Seattle demonstrates a movement beyond cable-knit game creatures to animals composed of various man-made materials.
Denny’s unique perspective comes from summers spent in the wilderness hunting with her father balanced by winters of embroidering indoors, creating a fluid and unencumbered fusion of domesticity and wildlife. A few of standouts from the upcoming show include “Sweet Tooth”, a beast composed of cellophane-wrapped hard candies and “War Horse”, a penny-plated mare’s bust that raises questions surrounding money, war and the natural world.
We recently caught up with Denny to discuss the new works and her fascinating process.
I love working in a variety of materials and have always collected interesting odds and ends for future studio use. “War Horse” is armored in train-flattened pennies and I chose the material for its duplicity of meanings and the aesthetic quality of the shimmering copper. I generally work with the materials of each piece to bring more meaning to the place that these creatures hold in our lives and how we interact with them. I try to make the work aesthetically pleasing with rich materials to draw the viewer in and then hope that the other layers of meaning sift through.
That piece took a little over five months to create and quite a bit of patience. It started as rigid polyurethane with a steel frame inside and wood supports with a covering of tar to seal the foam and prevent any UV damage. Then it was a process of taking thousands of pennies to the railroad tracks and laying them down, going for a hike and returning to pick them up. I had to hand-drill each penny and applied each one with copper nails and a marine-grade adhesive. I was thrilled when it was completed and I could hang it on the studio wall to see the final result.
I collect discarded woolens and clean each piece—sometimes felting them if the knit is too loose and occasionally dying them to make the colors more vibrant. I have lockers full in the studio and use them as needed to match the correct curvature of each piece. Each work is made individually without the use of a pattern and each one is unique.
Each sculpture is different, depending on what is needed for the shape and scale of the work. I sometimes use taxidermy forms and carve them down for a specific look or pose. I also use rigid polyurethane foam blocks and carve them down with wood or steel “skeletons” inside to support the weight of the piece. I have also used wood frames and aluminum armatures with clay and plaster. It really just depends on what the individual piece needs and what will look the best while supporting the weight of the work.
I have lived in Portland since 1993 and it is a very comfortable city that has a slower pace of life and it is a very supportive community for the arts. It is also a smaller city that doesn’t have a wide collector base and I rarely sell work to my fellow Portlanders. I love the landscape of the Northwest and that there is still a wildness to the area. Seattle is a bit more cosmopolitan and has a different feel than Portland—a bit more energy and seriousness. I have had positive experiences with the galleries there and appreciate the quality of work that they show.
“Works of Nature” is on view at the Foster/White Gallery through 28 April 2012.
Foster/White Gallery
220 Third Ave South #100
Seattle, WA 98104
In an effort to increase bike commuting NYC has made plans to upcycle 225 parking meters by converting them into circular bike racks as seen above. According to Inhabitat: “The increase in bike racks is small compared to the current need in New York — there’s currently only one bike rack for every 30 bicyclists. It is meaningful, however — especially because they are sacrificing the ease with which you can pay to park a car. The meters are going to be replaced by “muni meters” at the end of each block.”
According to Media Bistro: Toronto has already successfully installed 16,000 similar racks (pictured above). Similar efforts are being launched in the cities of Los Angeles and Chicago.
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