THROW.NYC Kickstarts Disruptcycling
There’s upcycling and then there’s “disruptcycling,” and one creative designer is tapping the crowds to bring it to the masses.
After turning heads with his #BannersToBags collab with Messe Frankfurt’s Texworld USA—in which discarded trade show banners and signs were turned into fashion totes— Anthony Lilore, founder and chief re-designer at THROW.NYC, has launched a Kickstarter campaign with more bags and more designs.
Anthony is using the campaign to continue his quest of finding beauty in the “useless” and helping others join in on the fun. There are many ways we can look at Reduce, Reuse, Recycle so Carved in Blue chatted with him about his source of inspiration, the appeal of crowdfunding and what he sees as the sustainable future for designers.
Carved in Blue: Where did the inspiration for Throw come from?
Anthony: Interestingly enough, the inspiration for THROW, in its current state, came out of a conversation/collaboration with Jennifer Bacon at Messe Frankfurt. We were discussing the Texworld banners hanging from the ceiling at the Javits Center at the close of the July 2018 show. She had said that an ongoing theme for future shows would be based on their commitment to sustainability.
Being a person who likes to design and manufacture solutions—not to mention that I think just about anything can be turned into a bag or something other than what it is—I suggested that we make bags and have #BannersToBags as part of their sustainability initiative for the next show. She thought it was a good idea and the development began.
Carved in Blue: In #BannerstoBags, you took trade show banners and upcycled them into new bags. What was the reaction? Will you do it again?
Anthony: The initial #BannersToBags project was met with great enthusiasm. In my eyes, it’s equally important to cause people to stop and think. We want the “WOW” factor, the “Oh Really” or “No $h#!+” reaction. Some even say, “Why didn’t I think of that?” Yes, we definitely will be doing it again, and we are even extending it to other areas of the trade show and event industries.
Carved in Blue: Why is upcycling so important?
Anthony: Upcycling is important because it inherently involves something deemed useless as a feedstock for a second or third generation of a material. It is becoming more and more clear that we simply produce too much stuff from virgin feed stock and stress the limits of the natural resources we have available to us.
Plus, I think it’s really cool to be able to make something new from something that someone else thought had reached the end of its lifecycle. While upcycling may not always be completely circular, at least it extends the lifespan of a material and perhaps even allows people to contemplate what sustainability and product lifecycle mean to their lives and others.
Carved in Blue: What was appealing to you about joining Kickstarter’s Shapeshift?
Anthony: The Kickstarter Shapeshift campaign for THROW is an ideal audience and opportunity for the #BannersToBags concept. First of all, the Shapeshift aspect of this is a month-long concentration of like-minded, sustainability-minded designers, producers and users. In a sense, these are our peeps.
The flip side of preaching to the converted is the balance of the Kickstarter community who have had little or perhaps no association with companies whose DNA is sustainability. Therein lies the brilliance of the opportunity. Our job is to design desire. Our sustainability DNA is our DNA—though that does not necessarily have to be the first thing that’s communicated.
We lead with the word upcycle because it is becoming a familiar concept to the general audience of consumers, yet we would like to be able to take it a step further. We apply it to our industry as a feed stock and therefore use the word “disrupcycling” because what we’re doing is actually disrupting the material lifecycle by repurposing and transforming materials into beautiful and new objects for everyday use. This is what we are charged with doing. Solving a pain point for the industry and the consumer while building a business around the solution.
Carved in Blue: What’s your mission for 2020?
Anthony: Our mission for the upcoming year is to deepen our commitment to the #BannersToBags concept as well as other upcycled components. We are working with corporations to manufacture products for gifts and promotions that we will extend to individual consumers through our D2C site as well as Kickstarter.
Carved in Blue: What has been your most fun upcycle?
Anthony: The one I’m working on right now. The truth of the matter is, they are all fun. The reason for that is that we are transforming one item into another. That’s one of the reasons we named one of our bags Alchemy.
Carved in Blue: If you could change one thing about the industry, what would it be?
Anthony: If I could change one thing about the industry, all industries, it would be the nearly constant need for financial growth and stock market satisfaction at the expense of common-sense social and environmental justice. Please don’t take that to mean anything other than what it is. I believe in business and growth and financial satisfaction—I don’t want to get political about this—however, I do think industry leaders have to lead toward growth in many aspects of their businesses, not just financial.
Carved in Blue: Where is your favorite city to visit for inspiration?
Anthony: NYC.
Carved in Blue: What was your first pair of jeans?
Anthony: My first pair of jeans were not even called jeans; they were called dungarees. My first pair was in grade school but not for grade school. Dungarees were strictly after school or weekend yard work attire. These were an outlawed apparel item. The priests in high school would not allow us to wear them because they were for shoveling dung, and that was not what they were shoveling at the all-boy Catholic prep that I went to. Even at Parsons School of Design in 1980 I got sent home for wearing the forbidden garment. Maybe that’s why I wear jeans every day, unless of course a suit is the more respectful attire for the occasion. That’s just my DNA.
Carved in Blue: What does Carved in Blue mean to you?
Anthony: Carved in Blue may just as well be Carved in my Heart. Carved in my DNA like a love note in a rock. Given a world in nearly constant flux, there is comfort, emotionally and physically, in that which is grounded. Grounded, not inflexible but rooted, much like the Beech and Eucalyptus from which TENCELTM Lyocell or Modal are born. Carved in Blue is a commitment to our own truth and to a sustainability promise forever carved in stone. No eraser. No do-overs. Permanence.