Elvis & Kresse co-founders Kresse Wesling and James Henrit

Most waste materials contain some degree of latent value, that much is known. But what is often overlooked is that such materials come with their own unique history as well. That journey, from extraction and creation to end-of-use, contains a powerful narrative that many working in the field of resource management have yet to tap into.

One company that has acted on this realisation with alarming ingenuity is fashion label upcycler Elvis & Kresse. The company prides itself on taking what it calls ‘heroic materials’ – industrial waste such as decommissioned fire hoses – and transforming them into beautiful accessories like belts or bags.

Co-founder Kresse Wesling recalls when she first set eyes on a heap of used fire hoses that were destined for landfill in a Croydon fire station. Although they couldn’t be easily repaired or recycled due to their material complexity, she knew they could be reclaimed in some way. “It struck me that they all have a story to tell, one of saving lives... the hose is quite a heroic material”, she says.

That day, Wesling ended up dragging the 22-metre hose back to her flat in south London, where she presented it to her partner James Henrit with three objectives firmly in mind: “The first was to fix it, the second was to work out how much of this waste material was out there and how we could create a solution that deals with that problem, and the third was to make it into something that was financially viable – otherwise it would just be a vanity project”, she explains.

Out of this unlikely event, Elvis & Kresse was born (Elvis was Henrit’s university nickname). The company launched in 2007, selling belts designed and hand-crafted by Henrit from decommissioned fire hoses, and has since matured an admirable business model whereby 50 per cent of all the profits are donated to charities related to the waste producers that it works with.

This act of philanthropy also lends the company a marketing edge – especially in the luxury lifestyle goods market where fashion and sustainability are uneasy bedfellows. “There are lots of problems within the fashion industry”, Wesling notes. “It underpays raw material providers and exploits child labour. But instead of campaigning against this, we are showing that we can produce fashion in a different way.”

Wesling, who has a background in venture capital and material use (she founded the environmental packaging alternatives company Bio-Supplies), is constantly on the look-out for new industrial waste to work with, and has a hit-list of materials she’d like to target. Her company is now sourcing a lot of material from leather craft producers, such as old horse saddles, as well as reclaiming military-grade parachute silk, racing sailcloths and coffee sacks from Cafédirect and Costa Coffee.

Meanwhile, Henrit is tasked with handling, treating and designing new items out of these materials. It is a very resource-intensive process and involves a lot of experimentation – the fire hoses were initially upcycled into roof tiles, furniture, and Christmas ornaments before Henrit hit upon belts. That idea only came after his own belt split and he used a bit of hose as a replacement.

The company has used its lack of previous experience with fashion, textiles or design to its advantage. “With each material we take on, there is always a huge learning curve, so perhaps a traditional design course would have been a hindrance”, notes Wesling. “We have no preconceived ideas about what a material should be, which means we are always led by the strengths and properties of that particular material.”

Material is treated in a variety of ways. There are several stages involved in transforming the hoses into belts – edging, cleaning, polishing, splitting and skyving (thinning) – and equipment has had to be discovered and adapted for each phase. The polishing process exposes a sturdy, lustrous red rubber with a nylon core that can then be cleaned, cut, riveted and stitched using specialised machinery. Up to 70 belts can be crafted from one hose.

All waste material the company works with has to be sorted and cleaned, flattened or ironed, then rolled to make it as much like a new textile as possible before being passed onto the sewing team. As Wesling points out, the items are ‘problem materials’ often destined for landfill, meaning a more creative approach is required to turn them into a marketable product: “We have adapted pressure washers, scrubbers and strap cutters as well as some traditional leathercraft equipment to meet the particular needs of the hose.

“Effectively, we are dealing with detritus… We need to invent a whole new set of techniques to deal with that material, and we also need to convince the customer that the material is better, or at least equal to, traditional materials.”

The company makes bags as well as belts

While the business doesn’t face the usual costs in purchasing raw materials (the organisations it works with are happy to offload their waste for free), it does incur significant expenditure in collecting and storing the materials. However, Wesling says the company’s business relationships have never been based primarily on financial transactions.

“[We are] helping to reduce waste disposal costs for these companies and… also helping to contribute to the companies’ wider sustainability strategy – zero waste to landfill is now on everyone’s agenda, and our business model is a way to help companies achieve that”, she explains.

So far, Elvis & Kresse has diverted 250 tonnes of industrial waste material from landfill. It is now working with major fire brigades across the country and taking in around 12 tonnes of decommissioned hoses a year. In London alone, it has diverted 60 tonnes of hose from landfill. While Wesling acknowledges that the business remains very niche, she is confident that it can be scaled up organically.

It plans to break into the homewares market by targeting waste from luxury leathercraft producers, ranging from cobblers to car manufacturers. “We are looking at how we can utilise leather scraps from the leather craft manufacturing process. We can make three geometrical shapes from these scraps that can interlock with each other to make a variety of things such as rugs, light-fittings and cubes [beanbag chairs] – we’ve taken our inspiration here from how Lego works”, Wesling reveals.

This would also enable the use of offcuts from the company’s own upcycling process – as stuffing, for example, in the beanbags. Currently, such offcuts are minimised through the pattern cutting process.

Looking further ahead, Wesling hopes her business model will inspire larger designer brands to reinvent the way they produce luxury goods and accessories – in a more sustainable way.

“My passion for waste goes back a long way. Growing up in western Canada, I saw a lot of landfill sites”, she explains. “There was no kerbside collection, so you had to travel to a landfill to dispose of your own waste, and I was fascinated by it – the scale of it… how we try and hide waste away.”

Wesling’s journey is an engaging narrative in itself, and one that shows how stories of sustainability can be woven successfully into a prospering business.