We are delighted to announce our latest partnership with Garrard that perfectly aligns ethical and sustainable values in a Festive gifting project that gives back.
Created using upcycled blue seatbelts found in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, that closely match the brand's signature Royal Blue colour, the Garrard x Belo bag is convertible from crossbody to backpack, with the Garrard logo embroidered on the front.
Each bag is made by highly skilled Brazilian artisans and saves from landfill a total of 12 metres of seatbelts, 10 plastic bottles and 300g of fabric offcuts.
The positive impact doesn't stop there, each bag donates 8 meals to Casa de Maria.
]]>To increase the positive impact in our community in a week where overconsumption and unethical practices are celebrated, every BELO bag sold donates double the meals to Casa de Maria.
Casa de Maria is the cornerstone of the community in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, with a team of volunteers dedicated to giving back in any way they can. Every day, those in need are given food, a place to wash, regular haircuts and a place to learn.
This year, due to the cost of living crisis in the UK, every BELO bag sold on our website and at Selfridges will donate double the meals that will be split between Casa de Maria in Brazil and FoodCycle in the UK. So if you are planning to by a BELO bag, click here and maximize your impact!
So far this year, Food Cycle's volunteers have: Served over 401,000 WRAP meals Provided meals to over 46,000 guests; Rescued 168 tonnes of surplus food which would have otherwise gone to waste; Through their Check-in and Chat telephone befriending service, their volunteers have held over 2,579 conversations with guests providing 644 hours of contact time.
If you are planning to buy a BELO bag, this week you would make double the positive impact. Click here to shop now!
The fashion industry is not innocent or alone to its contribution to landfill waste. It is actually the largest contributor of textiles into landfill sites. The fashion industry along with other global industries has an ongoing addiction to plastic. Each year, the fashion industry uses 342 million barrels of petroleum to produce plastic-based fibres such as polyester, nylon or acrylic. This equates to 1.35 per cent of the globe’s oil consumption. Of the estimated 17 million tonnes of textiles which are produced each year only 20% of it is reused. The rest end up in landfill, which can have significant consequences considering many of these synthetic materials are non-biodegradable.
This is why we have to design differently and be up to the challenge of re-imagining what waste can be.
Belo was born to support our community in Belo Horizonte, Brazil and to make community centred sustainable changes. This is why we chose to upcycle seatbelts as there is an abundance of this incredible material that is discarded and leads to a high environmental impact within our community. When we started to study the textiles and other materials that were being discarded we soon discovered how these materials had incredible qualities such as strength, durability, texture, shine and water resistance that we had to explore how we could work with these materials to make beautiful products.
Like any fashion design team our first goal is to create beauty.
Our commitment to both people and the planet has led our design ethos to be more beauty, less waste. We design using upcycled and recycled materials. Designing with both upcycled and recycled materials comes with some challenges from the onset, but life would be boring if we didn’t have a challenge or two.
We are trend led and although we remain seasonless we do analyse the trend forecasting to create pieces that will be worn. Before putting pen to paper, we need to know what materials, textures and colourways are available before we can create a collection. From here we then create our mood boards for the new collection. Although there may be limits with colourways, we will always find other ways to inject colours, by combining materials or playing with surfaces. Our design inspiration for shape comes from industrial and architectural objects and we use different textures and colourways to tell the stories that inspire us.
When creating a new design particularly from our upcycled materials such as seatbelts we have to consider the properties of the material. Unlike leather recycled seatbelts can’t be skived to create a thinner area to reduce the thickness of material when creating seams. This is just one of the challenges we have to adapt to in the design room. As a team we are continuously working on design and development to problem solve and find new ways to work with these incredible materials and how we can play with texture while still having minimal impact on the environment throughout the process. Nothing feels better than developing a new way of working with our materials.
When designing our products, we want to limit any waste that occurs and in effect work towards zero waste production. This is where the inspiration for our smaller products come from.
Waste Management includes designing for the life cycle of the product. Working with upcycled materials makes closing the loop even more challenging but we are continuously committed to effectively closing the life cycle of the product and becoming truly circular.
As per with any accessory designer who works with more traditional materials such as leather, we start with pattern cutting our designs with paper so we can transform our thoughts into a 3D object. This is a great path to understand the challenges we might face, what seams and finishing we might need to consider.
The next step is prototyping is transforming the design into a 3D model using the actual materials. This is the most challenging part of the process, particularly if we are building a new structure/shape we haven’t worked with before. We might need to review what machinery we need to enable the structure to be a success. Dependent on the complexity of design this part of the process can take 2 weeks to 6 months or even longer to complete to ensure that we are only producing the highest of quality products.
It is a challenge to re-design waste particularly to a luxury level. Our team of artisans have developed over the years the high level of skills required to achieve what we once thought was impossible. But the appeal to design with these materials is not only to do with our impact on both people and the planet but also the fact that these materials have incredible and beautiful properties that need to be worn.
Discover our luxury upcycled seatbelt handbags and accessories via our shop now page.
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Landfills do not exactly have sex appeal, yet they contain many hidden gems that can be refurbished, utilised and brought back to life in incredibly creative ways. We need to rethink the word “waste” from the perception of unwanted goods to “wasted opportunity”. Although legislation is becoming tighter across the board with waste management in all industries, we do continue to see a design flaw in the re-use of materials. Things are changing but we need to continue to innovate for now. Otherwise, many of these hidden gems are lost forever, contributing immensely to the pollution of our planet.
Why are these materials entering landfill?
The simple truth of the matter is time, skill, lack of technology and investment.
Recycling, upcycling and refurbishing materials to a high-quality standard requires skilled craftmanship and takes time as well as a lot of creative input. The historic linear path of product design and manufacture means designing a product for one purpose, farming/mining materials that are then transformed into product, which is sold and then once the product has reached it’s maximum use it is thrown away. Fast and cheap production has led to returns/faulty items being discarded or burnt rather than refurbished or resold. Many of the materials used to design these products have incredible properties and we are missing opportunities to utilise these into further incredible products.
Although the technology is rapidly improving in textile recycling, limitations remain. These limitations such as improved recycling technologies and fragmented supply chains have led to only 1% of clothing being recycled into new garments and only 20% of textiles are recycled (Common Objective, 2021). The EPA estimated that in 2018 17 million tonnes of new textile was produced that year, this figure makes the 20% of textiles being recycled seem even smaller. The 80% being thrown away includes materials with incredible luxury qualities, including seatbelts.
What are the consequences?
Many synthetic materials are not biodegradable and can take hundreds of years to breakdown. Seat belts for example take 400 years to decompose, usually resulting in smaller microplastics. The crowded landfill environment slows the decomposition process even for natural materials. Even with tight regulations on landfill sights, the combination of the mix of materials, slow decomposition times lead to the release of greenhouse gases, leachate and other chemicals (including microplastics) into the environment.
What is the solution?
For us nothing solves a problem better than creative design and skilled artisanal workmanship.
We need to design/re-invent what already exists as well as investigate material manufacturing that focusses on a seed-to-seed approach.
Other industries as well as fashion do not have regulations set in place for textile recycling. This is likely due to the limitations in textile recycling as discussed above. The transport industry for example has incredible measures in place for repurposing many of the materials within vehicles, aircraft and other modes of transport. However, textiles used to include seatbelts do not seem to have a regulated process in place for repurposing. They most commonly end up being shredded and scrapped with other non-recyclable elements. Our perspective needs to change as this is not waste, this is opportunity, particularly as many of these materials, especial technical materials such as seatbelts have many luxury qualities that can be utilised.
Here at Belo we have built our innovative supply chain to collect these materials from car mechanics ect. to save them from a life in landfill. Using creative design and development we have worked with these products to create award winning designs encapsulate more beauty, less waste while supporting the community we work with. We have proved that beautiful luxury products can be born from re-imagining recycled and upcycled materials such as seatbelts.
BELO's new collection is an ode to the myriad of colourways coming from the sun, the giver of all life. We believe a pop of colour in your outfit can be all it takes to brighten up your day. Our range of glossy colourful Mini Jus will surely help you have fun with your style while making a positive impact in the world.
If you are a curious person that always questions how things are made and their effects on the environment, you might have wondered how we come up with such fabulous bright colours. Well ... no need to wonder any further, this blog is to answer all your questions!
Let's start from the beginning ... The seat belts are sourced in the city of Belo Horizonte, Brazil - our artisans and co-founder Maria's hometown. We started with a partnership with two mechanics that supplied us with unwanted, decommissioned seat belts - mostly black. Now and again we would get metres of colourful seat belts.
Our dream was to get enough of them so we could produce a small batch of bright bags. As we investigated further, we found out mechanics specialized in modifying cars and they had a whole bunch of colourful seat belts that would go to waste. So, to answer one of the most common questions we get asked, no, we don't dye our seat belts, all we do is clean them so they are good as new.
You might be wondering why so many seat belts go to waste. And there are two reasons for that. Firstly, in Brazil, you are not allowed to mend seat belts - once broken, you have to replace the whole strap. Secondly, there is a law that you have to change your seat belts every 10 years. So while they are not suited to protect you on the road, they are the perfect materials to make durable, tough and glossy handbags.
Can you imagine those beautiful colourful straps sitting in a landfill for centuries or even burnt? For us, real beauty should never go to waste and our New Horizons collection is here to prove it.
]]>Waste and poverty are intrinsically linked, with over 90% of waste being openly
dumped or burnt in Brazil – which affects directly the health of local ecosystems and communities.
So many materials are designed to last a lifetime, yet are often made into products with a shorter or even a single lifespan. A great example of this is seat
belts. In Brazil, their use within cars has a 10-year expiry date. Hence the amount of decommissioned seat belts that get thrown away daily is shocking. Seatbelts are strong, durable, water resistant, easy to clean, comfortable to wear and glossy as can be. Which makes them perfect to be re-imagined via thoughtful design into versatile fashion accessories, that can be passed down generations.
Our mission is to disrupt and change the perception of beauty and waste in the fashion industry. We want our actions to inspire the next generation to follow.
They can take up to 400 years to decompose which is why the majority are sent to landfill or burnt, releasing harmful micro-plastics into the atmosphere in the process.
We have built partnerships with local mechanics in Belo Horizonte, Brazil and
collect them weekly. This might sound odd but it wasn't easy in the beginning to gain their trust. Even though it didn't serve them any purpose, they were not willing to work with us. They questioned our motives at first but after they have seen what we have built with them, they get so motivated and happy to be part of the BELO team.
Money isn’t our only currency to trade seat belts for, we also provide English
lessons for the children of the workers in exchange for seatbelts. Learning
English in Brazil is so important for a successful future and it is another way that we can make a difference in our community.
Once collected, the seatbelts are cleansed using water and natural detergents
such as coconut soap before being air-dried. We only use the original colour of
the seatbelts that have simply been nourished back to vibrancy - in other words, they are good as new!
BELO designs to emulate nature, inspired by the beauty of ecosystems. By
using materials such as decommissioned seat belts, we are mitigating the
waste that exists now, giving them a new purpose. After all, real beauty should never go to waste. To find our more about our impact goals, click here or about our other materials click here.
BELO was created to prove fashion can be kind. We aim to sustainably create opportunities for food, education and work - and allow customers to be a part of this journey too. Through each BELO product made and sold, we not only provide fair employment but also ongoing support for the community via our partner charity, Casa de Maria.
This week, we are celebrating 6000 warm and healthy meals donated to our partner charity Casa de Maria. This is only possible because of your powerful purchases. That is why until the 26th of November, we will double the amount of plates of food donated of each purchase made.
What’s new with Casa de Maria?
Since the pandemic started, Dona Nilza went from feeding 500 people in need to 800. Covid-19 has been tough on the community of our artisans and more than ever, Casa de Maria has played an important role to support so many families in need.
Fortunately, with the majority of Brazilians vaccinated and the easing of restrictions, the charity is now fully functioning, with the two main buildings opened to the public. The tutoring lessons are back and helping 70 teenagers through their end of the year exams.
Small actions soon add up to powerful changes. The proof is in the positive impact we've created in the environment and the community of Cafezal in Belo Horizonte, Brazil.
To be part of #KindWeek and shop our bags and accessories, click here.
To find out more about Casa de Maria, click here.