Thirteen years ago, British designer Anya Hindmarch was on a mission to stop people using plastic bags altogether with her ‘I Am Not A Plastic Bag’ campaign.
Hindmarch released 20,000 limited-edition totes as part of a collaborative project with Antidote and global social change movement We Are What We Do, which is now known as Shift. It unleashed a frenzy in the UK with more than 80,000 people queueing up try to get their hands on the limited-edition reusable tote, a reaction which Hindmarch describes as “overwhelming”.
“It was a combination of amazing to have sparked that reaction because it made a difference,” Hindmarch tells Emirates Woman of the reaction. “The number of single-use plastic bags used went down significantly post the project. But it was also a little scary as it was a quite political project and the reaction was a little overwhelming!”
Now, over a decade later, the British designer has taken a 180-degree turn on the initial ‘I Am Not A Plastic Bag’ campaign to launch the ‘I Am A Plastic Bag Collection’ – an iconic spin on her most powerful bag release ever.
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The new bag – which is available at Level Shoes in The Dubai Mall – is a part of the latest campaign and is made from plastic bottles. Each bag takes 32 half-litre recycled bottles and is designed to never be thrown away. As part of the process, the fabric is then coated with recycled windscreens.
“The new ‘I Am A Plastic Bag’ was born out of the fact that here we are in 2020 and the problem is far from over,” Hindmarch says. “However, the conversation has moved on to one of circularity. There are eight billion tonnes of plastic on the planet currently so how can we re-use what we already have?”
The project took two years to develop as the designer wanted to develop a woven fabric made from recycled PET (plastic bottles). This took time in order for the fabric to feel like a luxurious canvas.
“Because it behaves so much like canvas it gets dirty like cotton, so we had to coat it in a protective coating and wanted this to be recycled too,” she explains. “So we found a way to coat it in a recycled PVB, which we managed to extract from car windshields that would otherwise it would have been destined for landfill.”
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This is Hindmarch’s main aim for the new initiative – to keep plastic circulation rather than it going into landfill.
And it seems people are taking to the campaign just like they did back in 2007. Since the project launched, Hindmarch has been amazed by the reaction.
“It created a huge storm when we launched it in London and Hong Kong and then Tokyo – it sold out in hours,” Hindmarch says.
Luckily, for us in the UAE the highly sought after tote is available at Level Shoes in The Dubai Mall and on their website with prices starting from Dhs2,790. Although, you’ll have to be quick to get your hands on one as we’re anticipating this will be a sell-out item.
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