Local studio Hemingway Design collaborated with designer James Shaw to transform a London store interior for charity retailer Traid, which features colourful furniture created from leftover second-hand clothes.
Hemingway Design renovated Traid’s Shepherd’s Bush branch as part of a wider rebrand for the retailer to mark its 25th anniversary, including its visual identity.
Traid sells donated clothing and accessories in 12 stores across London to fund global projects that tackle the issues caused by producing, consuming and wasting textiles.
As part of the Shepherd’s Bush store refurbishment, Hemingway Design worked with Shaw to create furniture out of poor-quality clothes salvaged from the Traid sorting warehouse that the retailer deemed unsellable.
Shaw, whose practice centres on repurposing waste materials, created curved pendant lighting from the leftover clothes, which were shredded back to fibres and combined with a plant-based binder.
The designer applied this method to make the rest of the furniture. One piece is a low-slung bench for trying on shoes, upholstered with a yellow, green and blue patchwork of old denim jeans and corduroy trousers.
Shaw designed the bench’s lumpy legs in his trademark extruded HDPE plastic, finished in the same colours as the patchwork seat.
Elsewhere in the store, boxy pinewood changing room doors feature multicoloured handles created from the leftover clothes, defined by a speckled appearance thanks to the combination of shredded fibres.
Silver scaffolding previously used for a different purpose in the original shop layout was used to create a “staff picks” clothes rail positioned at the front of the store.
“To align with Traid’s manifesto of reducing waste and prolonging the lifespan of items, a fundamental objective of the refurb was to reuse and repurpose existing fixtures and fittings within the store where possible,” explained Hemingway Design.
British designer Charlie Boyden created chunky pastel-hued plinths from other offcuts and materials salvaged from the strip-out. They display merchandise in the shop window illuminated by more of Shaw’s clothing-based pendant lighting.
Swirly linseed-based oil-stained pine also characterises the geometric cash desk, fitted with an accessible counter and positioned in front of an existing timber stud wall painted in bold pink.
Next to the counter, bespoke bright green Unistrut shelving creates additional space for hanging clothes and displaying shoes.
According to Hemingway Design, Traid has put 228 million garments back into use to date, saving 622,059 tonnes of carbon dioxide and 105.3 million cubic metres of water.
“The charity retailer maximises the potential of the clothes you no longer wear, demanding change from a throwaway, fast fashion culture that continues to destroy this planet,” said the studio.
Shaw recently applied his extruded plastic designs to another store renovation in central London for shoe brand Camper, which includes a jumbo foot sculpture.
Hemingway Design previously created a minimalist but colourful logo to celebrate 100 years of the Dreamland amusement park in Margate, Kent.
The photography is by French & Tye unless stated otherwise.
Source: Rooms - dezeen.com
