Showing their mettle

Today at the Pure London fashion trade show I came across a stand devoted to the rescue and reuse of license plates. Although you can probably get the general idea from the pic above it's easy to get distracted by the fact that this young eco warrior appears to have forgotten to put on her trousers. So I've copied from the press release from Littlearth here:

"In a past life they were car license plates, hubcaps and fenders. Innovative designers Rob Brandegee and Ava De Marco had a simple idea: design and make unique handbags and accessories by reusing and recycling materials that would otherwise be overlooked or thrown away. That was some 15 years ago. The innovative process of reusing and recycling the most unexpected materials has become the canvas for intriguing ideas. An eclectic mix of graphics adorns these bags, from sophisticated chic to funky fashion.  Each is exquisitely adorned by hand with Swarovski crystals and carefully packaged in recycled boxes at our factory in Pittsburgh."

Rob and Ava offer lots of cool things for kitsch collectors who like to literally wear junk on their sleeve. But not everyone wants to advertise their upcycling agenda through old bottle caps and rubber recycled from car tyres (as in the case of the awesome belt below). Some people want to support the reuse of existing resources but don't want to make a big deal of it. For these, there are the FenderFlair bags (see bottom pic), which give no indication of their previous incarnation. They're just super nice bags in their own right.