Birkenstock and Crafts Council launch a creative platform collaborating with creatives and hosting workshops for customers.
The age old story with ‘sustainable’ fashion is keeping things going without making anything ‘new’. During a talk with Caryln Franklin at Source Fashion last year, the topic of experience economy came up. Something we advocate as Colèchi is shifting the dialogue of fashion from consuming to participating in different ways. Instead of selling *more dresses, can a brand sell tickets to their runway show to feed that person’s thirst for more for example.
Birkenstock have tapped into this idea of extending their offering by launching “BIRKENSTOCK: Your Blank Canvas”, a series of accessible craft-led workshops in partnership with Crafts Council hosted at the brands concept store in Shoreditch. Collaborating with creatives including Studiomama, Charlotte Kidger, Tanvi Kant and John Booth, the workshops are available on a first-come, first served basis to 30 customers who want to bring in their shoes and customise them or buy a pair to be customised with all proceeds going to Crafts Council.
We spoke with Nina and Jack, the design duo behind Studiomama, ahead of the first workshop of the series. The store front displays their moodboard, process, and customised shoes. Attendees walk into stations decorated with leather offcuts and tools. It was just another day for Nina and Jack. They were bringing people into their creative process. This gave a different view of a shoe that might have been sitting unworn for a little too long.
Images courtesy of Birkenstock
How do you want people to approach customising their Birkenstock’s?
Nina: So we thought a lot about this and first we had this idea of dipping them in paint. But then we thought maybe it’s nicer if you can add something and take it away so then you can change it so it’s not permanent. So we thought about all the different kinds of ways of making attachments to the shoes, using laces, buckles and then you can change whatever you put on them with different shapes and forms. The whole idea is also using offcuts, small pieces of leather and scraps so you can shift around and mix the colours.
What design discipline do you find the most interesting to work with and why?
Nina: I quite like to work in spaces. I say spaces because it’s more than interior design. Of course, we are product designers so when we make spaces it’s a holistic approach, to actually activate all the disciplines that we are doing.
Jack: I’m trained in product design, I like working with objects and furniture and things that scale. But for us, we are really fluid in what we do. We cross over in lots of different disciplines, as you can see, which and we love that we love that challenge. So yeah, I think we complement each other a lot.
Images courtesy of Birkenstock
What’s your approach when working with fashion and textiles? What do you find the most interesting, different or exciting?
Jack: One thing I would say, I would really like about fashion, and what we’ve done with this project, is the immediacy of so much, it’s so quick to do normally with other kinds of projects, working interior projects, architecture projects are very long, it’s a long period of time before you see the final thing. Working on this project was really quick, and you could see the results really easily. And we love the process of just how you can lock something up so rapidly with soft materials.
Nina: Yeah, it’s very hands-on. In fashion, I wouldn’t know what’s smart and trendy, I don’t follow that, but we know what makes things beautiful and playful and fun to wear or use, you know. So we work with things probably with the most sculptural idea of the shapes. With the collaborations we’ve done with Paul Smith, Marc Jacob and Birkenstock, it’s often using end-of-life fabrics or offcuts. Our approach is very much thinking within the limits of having scraps and offcuts, it’s not like we have the problem of having 100 meters of fabric.
What’s your favourite product you’ve made and why?
Jack: It’s so hard to choose one, but we decided on a product that we made for a company called Vaarnii , and it’s basically a rocking toy. And the reason we chose it is because, like Nina said, our approach is really to do with making things that are fun and joyful, that you can live with on a daily basis, and spark some kind of joy. And this rocking toy we designed is almost like an heirloom. So it starts with a rocking toy, but then when you turn it on each side, it can become a side table, and it can become something else after it’s used as a toy, and then afterwards, maybe in the later generation, it can come back as a toy again. So we like this whole narrative. We named it after a Seal that’s actually endangered in the part of the world they’re from.
Images courtesy of Birkenstock
How would you encourage others to design with nature in mind?
Jack: Well, that’s to do a lot with the materials. We work a lot with wood which is something that we keep coming back to and I think that’s something to do with Nina’s Scandinavian roots.
Nina: Well that, but just as a material is renewable, it’s sustainable and it’s quite simple. Working with a lot of other materials can also be very sustainable, but it’s always more complex with often adding other processes and other materials into it which complicates things in a way. And wood is something that everything can access, everyone can carve with, you make fine carpentry, it can be restored and we have a workshop.
