May 31, 2019
A few weeks ago I sat down with James Mitra, founder of JBM Consulting, to contribute to their 40 Minute Mentor series.
James met Elvis on a train years ago by complete coincidence and it started a small butterfly effect we couldn't have foreseen, which we also talk about in this podcast. It goes to show how even the smallest encounter, conversation, or deed can make a significant difference.
This podcast is a great way to learn a bit about my personal background, the foundation of Elvis & Kresse, the hurdles we had throughout the years, and our plans for the future.
And for a play by play?
Please do listen to it here or skip to the part that calls to you the most.
Enjoy!
- Kresse
April 18, 2019
We have created 3 scholarships for female solar engineers!
As most of you will know, we donate 50% of our profits to charities linked to the raw materials we rescue. With our leather system, we were determined to support renewable energy causes and we are now able to announce that our charity partner for our rescued leather project is Barefoot College.
Here is Barefoot College, in a nutshell:
This is the start of a beautiful partnership and we hope to share more and more of our Barefoot story over the coming years. For now, lets go back to the beginning...
Barefoot's founder, Bunker Roy is a social enterprise legend and Kresse has always been a fan. In 2018, at the Cartier Women's Initiative Awards Kresse met with Barefoot's Director, Meagan Fallone. You could credit this meeting to luck, but really you should credit it to Cartier's incredible effort to build a community of impact entrepreneurs.
It takes a year to go from a first meeting to a first donation and that moment is now. Initially we predicted that Elvis & Kresse would be able to create one scholarship. But thanks to our incredible customers and supporters, thanks to you, we have been able to create three!
Meet María, Silvana and Angelica, these amazing women from Guatemala are currently in India becoming solar engineers.
February 11, 2019
December 24, 2018
The entire Elvis & Kresse team hope you have a lovely festive season and we look forward to seeing you again soon in 2019.
Our workshop will be closed from around 10am on the 24th of December until the 2nd of January. Please do note that all orders placed through our website during that time will still be safely registered. Shipping will commence on the 2nd of January, 2019, when our workshop re-opens.
Wishing you all a wonderful holiday season,
Elvis & Kresse
November 20, 2018
To put it very simply, we don't like Black Friday. We don't participate in Black Friday, other discount days or sales seasons.
Let me explain...
1 - Elvis & Kresse is not a fast moving consumer goods brand. We aren't fast at all. We are slow. Our materials are rescued and their transformation takes time. We build to last, not for obsolescence.
2 - We believe in good value every day, not just for a few days each year. Our pricing is based on labour, creativity and innovation; we have a highly skilled team, our goods are labour intensive and built to last. Our prices reflect the costs of running a pioneering ethical and sustainable business, which is more interested in impact than profit.
3 - We don't do seasons. We don't have different pieces for different times of the year, and we certainly aren't interested in the weekly collections or even 'daily-drops' being released across the fashion industry. Seasons or other forms of entrenched 're-freshing' naturally result in over-production and waste.
Our washbags photograph well in the snow, but they aren't just for Christmas.
November 16, 2018
What you care about matters, and now it can make a difference through every purchase decision you make. This month an exciting new shopping platform will be announced. One that has been in the works for over 10 years. A world-first technology that will transform every pound you spend into a vote for a better future, while connecting you with businesses that share your values.
Every transaction you make tells businesses what it is you care about. Whether that be issues such as climate change and worker rights, this new App encourages business to adopt new practices in these areas. We took a moment to ask founder of CoGo, Ben Gleisner, what sustainable luxury is to him and what it is he wants to see change in the world.
We believe together, our voice can be a powerful motivator for change! See the good work the CoGo community is already doing. Your voice can absolutely make a difference to how businesses operate and this new innovative technology lets you see exactly how. Elvis & Kresse are proud to be one of the founding businesses to join CoGo. Being transparent and listening to what our customers care about is now even easier.
November 02, 2018
In the past year, the Burberry Foundation has created a unique partnership with sustainable luxury company Elvis & Kresse to transform at least 120 tonnes of leather off-cuts from the production of Burberry products into a range of new luxury accessories and homeware.
By demonstrating what can be achieved when leather waste is revalued and created into entirely new products, Elvis & Kresse and the Burberry Foundation aim to affect real change in the supply chain of the leather goods industry. Where leather waste is usually destroyed, the partnership with Elvis & Kresse is disrupting traditional approaches and revealing new solutions.
Read more about this innovative approach in an interview with Kresse Wesling MBE, Co-Founder of Elvis & Kresse.
How did your relationship with Burberry begin?
Kresse: Burberry first approached us in 2014. They were closing out an existing five-year social and environmental plan while planning their next ambitious five-year programme. They were impressed by our commitment to materials rescue and charitable donations and we started to discuss how we might collaborate. As you can imagine it took quite a while to develop a plan capable of saving significant material and worthy of both our businesses. When Burberry launched their new agenda in the fall of 2017 our project was a key component of their vision and we are now implementing and evolving this plan.
What does your partnership with the Burberry Foundation involve?
Kresse: We have partnered with Burberry Foundation to solve our most ambitious material challenge to date: the vast amounts of waste created through the production of leather goods. It is estimated that each year, 800,000 tonnes of leather waste is produced by the global leather industry. Through this partnership, we will demonstrate how the traditional leather goods supply chain can be disrupted and changed for the better. We will also transform at least 120 tonnes of leather off-cuts from the production of Burberry products into new luxury accessories and homeware. Half of the profits from this range will be donated to charitable causes focused on renewable energy. The remaining half will be reinvested to expand our work in reducing and reusing waste, protecting the environment and inspiring craftspeople.
Tell us about the process behind turning Burberry’s leather off-cuts into brand new products.
Kresse: No matter how carefully patterns for leather goods are planned, high quality, unused, freshly tanned and dyed leather falls to the cutting room floor as seemingly unusable pieces. Our system transforms leather fragments from the production of Burberry leather goods into components. The first step is to coordinate with Burberry production to ensure the smooth collection of off-cuts. When they arrive at our site in Kent we sort them into size and colour. We typically only start the cutting process when we know which item we will make, ensuring that we don't over-cut any particular shape. We then plan our cuts carefully, ensuring that we produce as little of our own off-cuts as possible. Each component of our system is then individually cut before it is hand woven, piece by piece, into whatever it is we need. This could be anything from a panel for a bag, a large leather rug or tapestry, upholstery, pouffe, or works of art.
Elvis & Kresse captures the imagination of people around the world, and you’ve sometimes had some unusual requests for bespoke products. Tell us about the most unusual project you’ve completed for a client.
Kresse: We designed and built an entirely circular kitchen using only reclaimed pallets and scaffolding wood. It consists of hundreds of pieces, with no two the same, and had to be built twice. We first built it in our workshop to make sure it was perfect, then we numbered each piece before taking it apart and then rebuilding it in its forever home. It is the most beautiful and yet utilitarian jigsaw-like installation; to us it feels like a genuine cross between a kitchen and a piece of art.
What are some of the other raw materials that you transform?
Kresse: London's hoses will always be our first love, but we rescue more than 10 materials on a regular basis and have created unique products with all of them. We work with failed parachute panels and auction banners for our lining materials and dust covers. We collect Yorkshire Tea Sacks, transforming them into our brochures, leaflets and mailing envelopes. Additional packaging and labeling is made from second hand shoe boxes and coffee sacks. As range staples we also reclaim printing blankets, split scaffolding wood, and Burberry leather off-cuts. Finally, we always enjoy welcoming people to our home and workshop in Kent, Tonge Mill. We began a restoration adventure here in 2013 working the same way that we make our products, with rescued or reclaimed materials. It is a difficult and slow way to renovate a building, but it is the only way to create a truly luxurious, bespoke result that doesn't compromise on our environmental values.
Is there any other material that you would really like to work with?
Kresse: Unfortunately, we live in wasteful times. This means the list of materials we would like to rescue is incredibly long and represents millions of tonnes of valuable material. We know that our particular style of alchemy is a powerful solution for all kinds of materials but we have to focus. Right now, we are committed to solving the leather issue.
Find out more about our partnership with The Burberry Foundation, here.
October 31, 2018
Elvis & Kresse is a pioneering sustainable luxury brand established in 2005 to rescue London Fire Brigade’s damaged, decommissioned fire-hoses. For more than a decade we have been transforming all of London’s hoses into luxury accessories and donating 50 per cent of the profits to The Fire Fighters Charity.
We started Elvis & Kresse to solve a waste problem, and to change an industry by setting a completely different example. For more than a decade we have been redefining what waste, luxury and business are. Here are my fives rules for succeeding as an environmental entrepreneur.
Don’t start with an idea, start with a problem. We face unprecedented environmental challenges: we have lost 30 per cent of our bees, and by 2050 there could be more plastic than fish in the oceans, much of it too small to see or capture. If you want to run a truly rewarding, impact-driven business, choose one of these challenges. When I first moved to the UK in 2004, 100 million tonnes of waste went to landfill. This provoked an exploration that continues to this day and explains why when we learnt about the damaged fire-hoses in 2005, we knew that we had our problem – the one we could solve with Elvis & Kresse.
This means knowing what it is, why it exists, how big it is, what or who causes it, where it is and what makes it worse. We traveled to see the fire-hose manufacturer to understand how the product is made, why it has a health and safety lifespan, and what else may cause it to fail. We met fire brigades across the country to understand how they work with the material, the extreme situations it is designed to survive and the workload it has to bear. We researched the entire life-cycle of the hose, from birth to death. We also spoke with academics to understand the base materials that make up the products and did a lot of research around where and how these materials are used beyond the fire service. We became hose and hose-waste experts.
Be ambitious. Ensure that your solution could be scaled up to eradicate the problem. The love that we pour into each and every one of our fire-hoses is the reason why it becomes the perfect material for guilt-free luxury, and why we have been able to rescue all of London’s decommissioned hoses since 2010; however, it also means that there is simply not enough to make products for the mass market, and the process involves an intense amount of labour. Thus, in 2010 we started to tackle another problem: the fact that 800,000 tonnes of leather waste are produced as off-cut each year. For us this was a much more ambitious challenge to take on, and it required an equally audacious and innovative solution. Instead of designing products, we focused on designing a modular system, looking at specific shapes that could be woven together and taken apart to create whole new hides. This approach has the potential to solve the leather-waste issue, but only if we scale up, which is why late last year we were excited to announce our five-year partnership with the Burberry Foundation.
This encompasses environmental, social and financial aspects, the latter because positive cashflow means you won’t have to compromise on your solution. Just because you are a purpose-driven social enterprise that exists to do good doesn’t mean you will be immune to wider economic issues. Like any business internal problems such as the loss of key staff or suppliers, or other shocks can damage your business. We encountered virtually every possible challenge in 2011 to 2012 and only survived because we reacted quickly, moved to a new location (in a new county!) and set up our very own manufacturing during the 10 most difficult and exciting days we have ever faced.
This is something we talk through with Elvis every time. The world doesn't have time for exploitative, destructive businesses. Those days are gone.
October 16, 2018
September 04, 2018
Several months ago we started talking with LIVARI, a zero waste womenswear label with three fantastic founders: Alysia Reiner (Orange Is The New Black, Equity), Claudine DeSola (Caravan Stylist Studio) & Tabitha St. Bernard-Jacobs (Tabii Just, Women's March).
Using the art of fashion as a medium of activism and hope, LIVARI is a collaborative space where the voices of women are celebrated and uplifted.
This handmade-to-order piece is an incredibly elegant interpretation of our Fire & Hide clutch bag. LIVARI selected the colours, material combination and designed the black-on-black pattern of the clutch. Our shared values and ambitions make this collaboration a true meeting of hearts and minds. Elvis & Kresse donate 50% of our profits to charitable causes associated with the materials we rescue. As with our Fire & Hide range we are working with Barefoot College, supporting the education of female solar engineers and the renewable electrification of their communities. LIVARI have etched their motto, JOY is an act of RESISTANCE, on one of the leather pieces handwoven into the clutch. This is definitely the kind of message you will want to carry proudly, from day to night.
This Limited Edition is available here.
August 03, 2018
The rich, red lustrous coils of London hose that Kresse fell in love with
Fire-hoses were first invented in Holland in the late 1600s. They were made from hundreds of strips of leather stitched together into long tubes. These were heavy and unwieldy, but better than the bucket brigades that preceded them. Leather hoses, in various forms, were used up until the 1890’s when they started to be replaced by woven linen hoses. The linen weave would swell just enough, when the hose was soaked through, to keep most of the water moving forward. These linen hoses were light, but they could rot and they leaked.
Fire-Hoses in use during The Blitz (London Fire Brigade archive)
Modern hoses are all composites. Most have a woven structural core or outer, with a rubber jacket or a rubber inner. They have different designs for different situations and activities. The hose that is used by the London Fire Brigade today, the hose that we collect, consists of a woven nylon core with a nitrile rubber jacket extruded through and around that core. 95% of the hose we collect is red, just under 5% is yellow and occasionally we will bring home a black or blue hose. The black and blue are so rare that we only ever make cufflinks from them. Most of our red hoses are a 10cm diameter layflat hose. Being ‘layflat’ means that although the hose looks round when it is full of water, it flattens out to a 10cm width when it is empty, which makes it easier to roll, store and carry.
The reason why hose has these two layers, the nylon and the rubber, is to ensure that it can do its job. The nylon is woven into a tube, it has no seams or joins, and is as long as the hose itself. It is this nylon element that ensures structural integrity, keeping the hose from bulging or bursting or kinking when under intense pressure from the water. The vulcanised nitrile rubber is heat resistant and waterproof. It has ridges on its outside face to protect the hose when it is being dragged through glass or other dangerous situations and it has a dimpled inner surface, a lot like that of a golf ball, which helps water to move swiftly through the hose.
At each end of a hose you find a reusable coupling - and these are something that we rarely collect as they are reusable. The metal ends of our hoses are made from cast aluminium and even when a hose dies, they can be refitted to new hoses. We only collect them when they are damaged beyond repair. Unlike hoses these couplings could readily be recycled, into new aluminium items, but we can achieve two great things by carefully cleaning, polishing and cherishing each set. Firstly, we can give them a second life (and reuse should always be your first choice before recycling) and secondly, we can generate much more than their straight scrap metal value for our partners in the fire service and the Fire Fighters Charity by lovingly transforming them into candlestick holders. We are told they make fantastic wedding gifts too...
Fire-hoses are decommissioned for one of two reasons. The first reason is life-span. Hoses have an approved health and safety life of 25 years. When they reach this age, they are taken out of service.
The second reason is damage. Each fire-hose that we collect is on average 22 meters long. Fire-hoses have to be long, they have to travel from their water source (either a fire truck or a fire hydrant) to the site of the fire. Certain punctures can be patched and repaired, just like you would repair a bike tyre. But no two punctures are the same. If the puncture is small and in the middle of one of the ‘layflat’ faces of the hose, this can be patched. However, if there is a catastrophic tear somewhere near the eleventh meter, which goes over or around one of the curved edges of the hose, then that is it. Game over. If it is too damaged to repair it is no longer a fire-hose.
It was five days before Christmas, 2016, and we got a frantic phone call. ‘Please help!’ begged the male caller. He had just taken a sneak peak at the purse he was planning to give his fiancée for Christmas. This particular piece had the name "Angus" in bold black capitals on one of the panels. The problem? Our caller was not called Angus, but what do you think was the name of his fiancée’s ex? Yep, Angus. We immediately sent out a replacement, just in time for the holiday.
Angus Duraline is a brand name for the best fire-hoses in the world, the Angus comes from the founder George Angus, who first registered his company in 1888. We get emails almost weekly, from every country you can name, asking if they can buy the damaged hoses that we collect from the fire service. It is that good.
The traditional design process starts with a concept. There is very likely a sketch, whether this be of a dress, a plane, a house or an interior. The materials are then acquired to achieve that particular design. Elvis & Kresse like to work backward. We start with a problem. When we first brought the hose home we were looking at it as nitrile rubber and nylon. It couldn’t be fire-hose anymore, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t have an incredible second life. We analysed the entire problem too, not just the material. Where was the hose waste? How much of it gets decommissioned each year? What kind of industry should we target? What kind of product could we make that could potentially solve the whole fire-hose problem? How could we have the biggest positive impact?
Elvis, carrying our Messenger Bag, at Tonge Mill, the home of Elvis & Kresse
We spent a lot of time working out what fire-hose was before we made our first belt. But after that belt we never looked back. Since then, our only goal for the hose has been to cherish it. We know that the best way to ensure it has a long and healthy second life is to love it, embed highly skilled craftsmanship into every piece, and focus on classic, utilitarian shapes that won’t pigeon hole any of our products into a particular season. The only way for you to love it, is if we present it at its incredible, beautiful best.
Fire-hoses start off as a life-saving tool of a tremendously heroic trade. We rescue them, transform them into heritage classics and then donate 50% of the profits to the Fire Fighters Charity (FFC). The hose saves us, we save the hose, and the FFC helps to save fire service personnel. We couldn’t imagine a better way to honour the fire-hoses and the firefighters.July 18, 2018
I'm originally a country girl who grew up in Australia with parents who aimed to live the sustainable 'grass-roots' hobby-farm life. My love of art and design led me to study fashion production systems because I assumed that fashion would allow me to infuse a useful product, like clothing, with my love for art and design.
The employment gods were kind and I had a whirlwind career in all kinds of covetable positions in the fashion industry. However, it fell short of my creative expectations (which was particularly apparent in one role where I sat at a computer illustrating exact copies of garments purchased on overseas buying trips). It was wasteful in regards to both rubbish and creativity and as I was in the industry on the edge of the fast-fashion boom, I could see that this would only get worse.
The breaking point for me was when I was a lingerie buyer for a department store and unpacked sports bras with lovely purpose-built hangers that were removed and sent to landfill before they even got to shop floor because the poor hangers didn't 'match the decor'. The next move for me was a sustainable tourism degree, which I moved interstate for and they sadly closed down the year I enrolled!
So, by default (they had similar first year subjects), I ended up becoming an environmental scientist and majored in sustainability. I've worked as a plant science researcher for over seven years now while running my sustainability education website Sustainability in Style, working as a freelance writer for print magazines, and also studying my Master of Environment with a major in Sustainability education. I'm at the pointy end of my Masters research where I'm looking at the way that sustainability messages can be transmitted through social media and how they can influence real-world sustainable action.
My ultimate luxury is time, space, and quiet. I am disorientated for the whole day if I don't have my quiet time in the morning to meditate, make a smoothie, journal, stretch, and plan for the day. It's that little bit of luxury that can change the way the whole day pans out. I've noticed the days or times where I haven't been able to carve that little bit out can be very stressful and unproductive.
Last year my hubby was injured and couldn't work for a while so I was (not very successfully) juggling three jobs along with the website and freelance work. I think the only thing that kept me going was the meditation! I don't recommend doing that much work at any one time but it's handy to know that in-a-pinch meditation can actually make up for lost sleep and lack of real rest for the short term.
Ooh this is a tricky one because all my plant science projects fit under this category - as well as my research and Sustainability in Style. To be honest though, despite focusing my career on Sustainability and environment, probably the most positive experience I have had to date was raising money for OXFAM and getting to participate in their Oxfam Challenge- riding a bike through Vietnam and Cambodia and getting to visit an Oxfam-funded weaving venture in a rural village. It was so incredible to be able to do something like that in memory of a dear friend who lost her life far too young. One of my favourite memories from that trip was riding down a rural road and stopping for lunch on the roadside and playing soccer with a whole field of children. The Cambodian people had experienced such tragedy so recently, and landmines are a constant reminder and a real threat of loss. For an Aussie who grew up in a safe and happy (pre-social-media-networking-always-on-stressed-out) time I felt so in awe of the Cambodian spirit to share their happiness with us through the universal language of smiles (and football).
It's a tricky subject because the fundamental flaw of life as we know it is that we have an economic system based on growth at any cost on a planet of finite resources and space. Sustainable businesses need people to buy from them to be able to make money. Unfortunately, most of us are trapped in the idea that value means 'low cost' and that we need to have lifetime ownership of something, which means that many businesses who want to pay the full cost don't get the patronage they require to stay in business. Also fashion is fundamentally based on the idea of change, while sustainability in regards to fashion requires us to want to change less.
If there is a whole of industry push to closed loop production systems where we can own an item until we tire of it and send it back to be made in full into a new garment without losing quality or creating waste (in a zero-waste, renewable energy powered production system), and/or to be used in its current context by someone else. Then yes, changing your closet contents could be as close to natural ecosystem models as possible. However, people still have to be employed in this model and this extends all the way up the supply chain. Human ethics would dictate that changes in the fashion production system would also require the long term consideration of the millions of people who are employed by the global garment production system.
I think that with the right economic, systematic, and capital planning the apparel industry could be sustainable. However, I don't know if 'fashion' is sustainable in the current definition of it being always changeable (outside of growing your own T-shirt in the morning and composting it at the end of the week to find a new one spouting from the soil the next day). Finding a signature personal style and using apparel to enhance and adorn it seems (to me) more sustainable than always changing how you look to suit trends.
Eeep! Boots! My shoes are literally worn to death and it can be really hard to get ones that last the distance. I've got a few really 'well-loved' pairs of shoes that I could share (including a pair of Dr. Marten boots that are now 18 years old) but these guys are on their last kilometres. I've had them repaired so many times over but sadly they have nearly walked their green mile as the insides of them have now fallen apart and my cobbler said there isn't anything he can do for them. I'm thinking they will become succulent planters when they finally do disintegrate while I'm wearing them.
True story: I was walking through the shopping centre on my way home from the bus stop and actually walked out of the sole of another pair of (thrifted) shoes. I walked back to it, took my shoes off, walked home, and stuck them back on! They are still going!
I love thrifting. It's a talent of mine! Sadly (and I say sadly because people should love their clothing selections more than they do) you can find anything you like secondhand. Which means that many small sustainable brands struggle to capture enough market share as their target market of eco shoppers tend to not shop at all, or buy secondhand first. I actually had a secondhand shopping score at an amazing secondhand market event here on the Sunshine Coast where I recently scored two lightweight Isabel Marant tops. They are divine and I chose them for the natural lightweight fabric, baggy boho designs and full-coverage sleeves and necklines. It gets SO humid here in summer and our winters are sunny and warm so all my clothes are based on being protected from the sun and avoiding the dreaded sweaty-pits-and-back look that happens if you wear tight clothes.
I'm not sure what industry to talk about - I have too many (it's exhausting and I hope to change that soon).
Plant science? I would make it more sustainability focused. Sadly, many science research projects have waste outputs. Especially when you have to work in a laboratory environment where quarantine conditions require specific disposal of waste.
Sustainability education? I would get people thinking about the dollar value of education. Education is often taken for granted in regards to monetary value. It's priceless in the way that it is marketed as the solution to all our sustainability issues, however no one wants to put the money into making sustainability education a reality outside of traditional schooling methods and - occasionally - for community groups and not for profits. If we were really serious about sharing sustainability messages with the adults who are making the decisions now that affect the future of the planet, we would be funding sustainability education ventures and research. I'm hoping that all the hard work I'm investing into setting up my Eco Style Insiders members site, workshops, books, and shop over the next few months will give me the income I need to be able to do ongoing sustainability education PhD research. However, if I can't get the funding I need to support myself through these studies, I won't be able to do them. Many of the solutions to our health and sustainability issues are sitting in the brains or computer files of researchers without funds!