February 14, 2020
The launch of "I Am A Plastic Bag Collection by Anya Hindmarch:
Anya Hindmarch first launch the I’m Not A Plastic Bag in 2007 to raise awareness of the use and the misuse of plastic bags. This month she launched the already sold out I Am a Plastic Bag Collection, made from recycled plastic bottles.
“Despite the impact of our 2007 I’m Not A Plastic Bag project, the problem of single use plastic is far from solved. The mission has changed however, from ‘awareness’ of the problem to ‘circularity’ of materials, something we’ve spent the last two years working on with the I Am A Plastic Bag project.”
Fashion Statement
Anya Hindmarch has once again foregone a catwalk show or a presentation during London Fashion Week. She decided to launch the 'I Am A Plastic Bag' collection and filled up her London stores with plastic bottles to make a statement on waste.
It’s taken over 90,000 plastic bottles to fill the stores, which have been collected by Anya Hindmarch employees from their local communities. This may sound like an astronomical number, but this is how many plastic bottles go into landfills every 8.5 minutes. (source: Anya Hindmarch)
All Images from Anya Hindmarch
It took two years of testing and research to create this collection.
The woven fabric used to make I Am A Plastic Bag is woven from a yarn created from plastic bottles, an example of modern craftsmanship. The plastic bottles are first sorted, shredded, washed and then turned into pellets. These pellets are melted into fibres that are then spun and woven to create the fabric. To create a weather-resistant durable finish, we then coat the fabric in recycled PVB, a product which is extracted from old car windshields. This is the first time this has been done. They initially considered using vegan or recycled leather for the trims, but after much research and advice we came to the conclusion that responsibly-sourced leather was the best material as the alternatives we found contain high-levels of polyurethane. The leather is a by-product of the meat industry and is sourced from a tannery in Northern Italy who have been gold-rated by The Leather Working Group, and offer tractability of the European skins, and assurances that the leather hasn’t contributed to deforestation. The hardware is made from stainless steel and gold-coated using PVD, a technique that does not create chemical waste (unlike electro-plating)
