When it comes to walking the walk, circular lifestyle brand Space Available is the one to know.
By now, there is nothing novel about the term ‘upcycling’. A term that has been done to death; used and abused by the majority of fashion labels, stamping ‘upcycled’ on a product can often induce an eye-roll or two. Especially when a product has obviously been created in the aim of being in the umbrella of whatever micro-trend that the Internet has helmed the winner of the week. The practice, which refers to the better and earth-friendlier way of repurposing materials rather than recycling them, has been applied again and again, across a multitude of disciplines.
Sustainability has had the last decade enthralled, to say the least. Attributable to the rise of discerning consumers, or the spate of global warming-related headlines, all players from cuisine to fashion have attempted in a form or another to minimise, or at minimally, assuage their carbon contribution. Greenwashed or not.
For Space Available, there is no facade — co-founder and creative director Dan Mitchell guarantees this. The Bali-based, UK-born super-creative gushes in discussion of the environmental design studio’s practices, going over each minute, miss-able facet with meticulous razor-sharp focus. When Men’s Folio meets him, he details the hand-stitching and manual screen-printing that goes into its line of tees, and without hesitation, dives into the schools of thought that propel Space Available’s work.
But with a product mix that extends across lifestyle furnishings, ready-to-wear releases and even interior design (you’ll have sister agency Antifragile to thank for that), the good-doing principles might not come across as blatantly as one would expect. For the Balinese brand that has ‘Making Space for Nature’ as its tagline, the idea of creating, marketing and then selling products would appear contradictory to society’s understanding of sustainability. Make less, use less, waste less, no?
But the sustainable model of consumption is not as unforgiving in reality, unlike what some may perceive. Circularity, which is the primary philosophy to Space Available’s brand, is the promoted method of use. Second in line to the utopian ideal of cutting consumption out completely. And when one considers the raw materials churned into the make of the brand’s models — namely bottle caps and scrappy waste — the label’s ethos stands firmly aligned with the altruistic, Earth-bettering systems of sustainability.
Bottle caps in red, blue, orange and and white (one can try to guess which delectable fizzy beverage they once were an attribute of) can thus elude their typical haunts of beachfronts or incinerator plants. Instead, waste is liquefied and then moulded into speckled plastic shapes of desire, finding new purpose, bodies and homes. On the fashion front, scraps of excess off-cuts are collected from garment factories to be plant-dyed, re-sewn and cobbled to timeless vessels to front Space Available’s philosophies. Vinyls players, lounge chairs, record boxes, necklaces, shirts and coasters are all imbued with function, reviving the unfavourable in a thoughtful, practical way.
And the same goes for what’s stocked at Dover Street Market Singapore. The Self-Assembly Stool — which is offered in technicolour finishes or in exclusive tonal achromatics — are hardy, sturdy materialisations of the ethos. It is hard to imagine what once was: the seats are artfully marbled, and no two panels are the same. And that is exactly the beauty of it. When a collective gets together to do good, waste can get metamorphosed to objects of desire.
The Space Available capsule is available now, at Dover Street Market Singapore. Once you are done with this story, click here to catch up with our February 2024 issue.
RELATED ARTICLES
The AI-fication Of Facial Treatments
Fashion Is Yearning for More
