The fate of most woven bags after they are used or destroyed – sunk to garbage dumps, abandoned, incinerated.
But in the eyes of the “local pick-up” brand designer, it is the limited, the only, the inspiration for the new trend.
Humor is a chemical agent for waste materials and trendy products
Woven bags, made of cheap but durable polyethylene, polypropylene and other chemical plastic raw materials. It appears mostly on cement packaging in construction teams, in the transportation of agricultural products, in the storage of chemical products, and on the shoulders of returning workers. After completing its mission, it was discarded in the trash without mercy.
Local pickup at the 2018 Taobao Maker Festival
No one worries about the fate of woven bags, and no one can imagine that they will one day be associated with the fashion industry. It wasn’t until 2015 that they were recycled in the ground and designed as daily bags.
Wild design based on street culture
REEMIX STUDIO is a trendy studio in Shenzhen that sells bags for post-90s buyers, and all their products are related to woven bags.
The first step in the “transformation” of woven bags is recycling. These re-collected woven bags are basically not aesthetically pleasing, the names of the chemicals in large and bold on the bags are very eye-catching, and the red, yellow and blue logos are also very recognizable, and it is all clear what they used to package, who the distributor is, and where the address is.
These bags are cleaned, and the designer uses the fonts on the bags as elements to draw the design draft, select the pattern you want to stand out, and then re-cut and stitch it with a sewing machine to become a practical bag. Generally speaking, the most prominent words on the bags produced are always “poly”, “propylene”, “Vietnamese fragrant rice” and “non-GMO soybeans”.
In the eyes of creators Huang Zuchuan and Lin Jia, this is a kind of street culture, which comes from the street and daily life. The more people don’t want to be associated with it, the easier it is to attract attention to it.
Avoid it, it is better to joke with the world with humor, unorthodox attitude.
The two founders, both art majors, say woven bags with chemical elements remind them of the art test days.
Like the latest pictorial, the model stands in the Chaoshan rice noodle shop that has been open for more than ten years, with a wooden deer head under a Chinese-style hooded lamp engraved with “Rolling Wealth”, wearing a loose silk shirt, dyed bright hair color, yellow rimless sunglasses that can cover half of her face, staring at the camera with an indifferent posture, and a bag spliced with PVC and woven bags on her chest.
The shop on the street is the first choice for each new product advertisement, and it has the same sense of fit as the definition of picking up REMIX.
This is a down-to-earth fashion way in the heart of the creator with the characteristics of the times. It must be real in life and not derailed with the times, which is the origin of the brand name.
Pick it up, create it and reuse
Being local means respecting the original identity. Recycling woven bags requires more processing than ordinary bag designs. Due to the different patterns of each woven bag, there is no way to carry out assembly line production when designing, cutting, splicing and using. As a result, all the bags in the store became limited editions and no longer appeared when they were sold out.
“Picking”, in addition to informing the public that raw materials come from recycling, is also homonymous with the word “practical”.
“We don’t want the product we make to be a skin bag that can’t be used in life.”
Founder Huang Zu said, “It should be a bag that can be carried with you at all times and willing to get along with you every day.” ”
And “Reemix.” means Remix. Simply recycling materials is too unimaginative.
Only when the old and the new, the abandoned and the novel mix and collide, can the fashion reaction of Mars splash burst out.
The woven bag is paired with a corduroy liner to make a laptop bag. The combination of woven bag and canvas creates a sturdy and durable tote bag. The combination of brightly woven bags and PVC materials makes it suitable for cool and compact mini shoulder bags. The bags born in this way have fashion elements and will not derail with the fashion products of this era.
For the process of “recycling materials” and “processing and manufacturing”, local picking is not a cumbersome and boring procedure, but more like bringing back a dirty little homeless man in an inconspicuous alley. Comb his hair and change into new clothes. Dressed carefully, peeling off his rough shell like a cabbage, revealing a beautiful interior. This process is the “new life” of materials.
Humor is a cure for waste materials
There is a chest bag that is the most popular among users and has also left a deep impression on the two founders. The words “net content 50 kg” were printed on the body of the bag. It’s a common word that inspires team members.
They imagined those carrying the bag lining up at the subway station, as if stripped and weighed goods would be carried to various destinations; They imagined the person carrying the bag waiting in front of the zebra crossing, and the 30-second traffic light was their pass.
So, the team decided to make a chest bag with this element to match the humor in this sentence. If the chest bag is analogous to a person, it must be a character like Wei Xiaobao in “Luding Ji”.
This feeling is often born in each bag with a different pattern. In the detailed introduction of each bag, it is written “Date of manufacture: from the moment you use it”, “Expiration date: expired”, “How to use: Please use this item with your attitude”, which is indifferent and natural. “Every time I recycle a new patterned fabric, I can’t wait to design a style for it.” The legend of Huangzu.
“Not out of business, still alive.” Ground Pickup has been open for 4 years, and frankly declares its state of existence to those who are skeptical. In order to celebrate his survival, he developed a “celebration” bag in the local collection, which was reassembled from the fabric of red flag cloth, old woven bags, and PVC left over from the production process.
The bags are made from pieces picked up on the floor of the studio, each one is different, maybe sloppy, maybe stained, but each bag is unique.
Being able to process earthy things into trends and reintegrate them into life, I can use them locally to attribute this skill to “humor”.
Humor is a charm that attracts others; Self-deprecation is a way of life that confident people have.
These are the attitude of life that you want to convey on the spot, and they are also the chemical agents for the integration of waste materials and trendy products.
Text | Xu Yuhong
Figure | Pick up on the ground