Hong Kong fashion label Wear Earthero, which upcycles vintage luxury bags and fabric scraps, shows wearable art to promote ‘conscious living’

Fabric offcuts destined for landfill contribute to the fashion industry’s toll on the environment. Sustainable fashion label Wear Earthero upcycles them instead
The label has also repurposed vintage luxury bags by getting an artist to paint design on them. Its bags and kimonos are on show in a pop-up exhibition

Sustainability

Kylie Knott

Published: 11:15am, 7 Jan 2022

Why you can trust SCMP

Bertha Shum thought she had struck “waste gold” when she stumbled upon Sewing Paradise, a fabric studio in the Kowloon district of Sham Shui Po.

The studio catered to the Hong Kong market, supplying fabric to clients from designers to fashion schools. But like other fabric sellers, leftover scraps were unavoidable. Most offcuts, Shum was told by the studio’s owner, were destined for the landfill.

“When I heard the bits of leftover fabric [were] most likely going to be thrown away, I knew I had to give them another life,” says Shum.

She does so through Wear Earthero, a label Shum established at the end of 2020 with pieces made using deadstock fabric – as leftovers are called in the trade – and sewn by a “small team of skilled aunties” at the studio.

Wear Earthero founder Bertha Shum at the Sewing Paradise studio in Sham Shui Po wearing a patchwork jacket made by its seamstresses.

“It is highly likely that the fabric will not be restocked, so all pieces are limited editions,” says Shum, who was born in Hong Kong, has a degree in geography and economics from University College London and is a graduate of a University of Cambridge business sustainability management course.

Shum is well aware of the devastating impact of the fast-fashion industry. According to environmental news and data platform earth.com, about 92 million tonnes of clothes-related waste is discarded globally each year, while 20 per cent of global waste water comes from textile dyeing.

How Yellowstone’s John and Beth Dutton keep it real in clothes that fit

Conscious living is part of Shum’s message. “Question everything you do. Is it good for me, is it good for the environment?,” she says. “I also want people to appreciate local culture and craftsmanship.”

To raise awareness of sustainable fashion – and encourage consumers to shun fast fashion – Shum organised “_Reimagined: WE Showcase”. Billed as a sustainable wearable art exhibition, the show – to be held at Wear Earthero’s pop-up space in Central until January 16 – is divided into two sections.

“Classics Reimagined” is a collection of 10 rare vintage handbags and luggage pieces embellished with unique hand-painted artwork by Viki Chan. “It’s been an intense project – both exhilarating and exhausting,” the artist says.

Stand-out pieces include a reworked Hermes Kelly 35 leather handbag featuring two hand-painted phoenixes, and luggage by Louis Vuitton embellished with a tiger and butterflies.

“The bags were bought second-hand so with the art added to them, we hope people will hang on to them for longer,” Chan says.

Chan also wants to raise awareness about wildlife conservation, the reason butterfly and tiger motifs adorn many of the bags. “Many people don’t realise that wild tigers – the South China tiger – once roamed Hong Kong,” says Chan of the critically endangered species. “It’s important to have a story behind the pieces – it makes them more relatable.”

Hong Kong artist Viki Chan with a Hermes Kelly 35 leather handbag she has painted on, part of the “_Reimagined: WE Showcase” exhibition.

Chan was one of nine Hong Kong artists recruited for the second part of the exhibition titled “Wear Earthero Art-isan Collective”. With “local culture” and “conscious living” as inspiration, each artist was given a piece of deadstock fabric to paint on; these were then assembled into reversible kimono jackets by seamstresses at the Sham Shui Po studio.

Chan’s kimono has a painted tiger cub as the focal point, with blue crows soaring across the sky and the Hong Kong skyline in the background.

“The crows represent wisdom, transformation and protection. With this painting, I hope to bring more recognition to the importance of protecting wildlife and their natural habitats.”

The jackets and associated NFTs (non-fungible tokens) will be available for sale via online bidding, says Shum, with profits going to Hong Kong charities J Life Foundation and Green Sense.

Shum says the decision to include NFTs – whose creation can consume a lot of electricity and which have therefore come under fire for contributing to greenhouse gas emissions – has to do with protecting the artists’ work.

“Indeed it’s not the greenest or cleanest route,” Shum says. But she believes that NFTs, as digital proofs of ownership, can help emphasise the originality and value of what the young Hong Kong artists do.

Jeans with planet power: ‘dirty’ denim is turning green to save the world

“Our focus is still the physical hand-painted pieces. But the artists should be given credit. That’s why we added the NFT element,” she says. The highest bidders for the jackets will receive an NFT at no extra cost.

On a greener note, Shum says all the chairs, stools and display panels used in the exhibition have been made by HK Timberbank, a social enterprise that recycles salvaged wood, such as from trees that were felled during 2018’s Typhoon Mangkhut and discarded Christmas trees.

“_Reimagined: WE Showcase”, Wear Earthero, Unit B, UG, 49 Hollywood Rd, Central. Opening hours: 11am-7pm. Ends January 16. For details visit https://wear-earthero.com/

Post