When Elizabeth Suda first traveled to Laos in 2008, she was operating on instinct. Without a concrete plan, the New York native was traveling to the country to learn how fashion could be more sustainable. She specifically chose the country to explore its rich history of colorful textile production.
After spending two years out of college working at Coach as a merchandising assistant, she wanted to research how Laos’ textiles were produced, what dyes were being used, whether artisans worked under ethical conditions and were well-compensated.
After living there for six months, she left Laos with a new mission: to make fashion out of the ravages of war.
“I didn’t go there thinking, ‘Oh, Laos is the most heavily bombed country in history’—I didn’t even know where it was on the map to be honest,” Suda says.
While there, she met artisans who were making spoons out of melted-down scrap metal left over from the roughly 250 million bombs dropped all over the country during the Vietnam War. About 80 million of those bombs failed to detonate, leaving a dangerous legacy from the war that poses a serious threat to the people of Laos today.“I thought I would plug myself into a fashion company, consulting, helping to improve supply chains, I never thought I would be starting a business,” she says.
After spending two years out of college working at Coach as a merchandising assistant, she wanted to research how Laos’ textiles were produced, what dyes were being used, whether artisans worked under ethical conditions and were well-compensated. After living there for six months, she left Laos with a new mission: to make fashion out of the ravages of war.“I didn’t go there thinking, ‘Oh, Laos is the most heavily bombed country in history’—I didn’t even know where it was on the map to be honest,” Suda says. While there, she met artisans who were making spoons out of melted-down scrap metal left over from the roughly 250 million bombs dropped all over the country during the Vietnam War. About 80 million of those bombs failed to detonate, leaving a dangerous legacy from the war that poses a serious threat to the people of Laos today.
“I thought I would plug myself into a fashion company, consulting, helping to improve supply chains, I never thought I would be starting a business,” she says.
Nevertheless, she soon founded ARTICLE22, a jewelry company that employs these artisans to make everything from necklaces and pendants to earrings and bracelets from bomb scrap metal.
The company’s name comes from the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Spearhead by former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt, the charter of liberties was put in place for the world to avoid the horrors and human rights tragedies of World War II from happening again. It was the first time the countries of the United Nations all agreed on a single declaration of basic global human rights.
“PEACEBOMB” was the company’s first collection, increasingly gaining more and more attention over the years, worn on red carpets and TV appearances by the likes of Emma Watson and Olivia Wilde.
Right now, ARTICLE22 reaches a customer base that spans 40 countries. “The whole company is about transformation, making something negative and making it positive and beautiful,” Suda says.
ITEM
Suda is largely responsible for the designs and concepts, collaborating with her team out of the company’s Brooklyn studio. Models are built there and then sent over to Laos, where their country manager works with the community of artisans to create new wood and ash molds of the pieces. This is a unique local technique—most jewelry is made using rubber casting—something that Suda says makes ARTICLE22’s products even more meaningful in that they share these artisans’ ingenuity and skill to a global market. The aluminum from the bombs is merged with other metals by skilled silversmiths in Vientiane.
PRICE
ARTICLE22 sells a diverse range of products from small ornaments at $28 and friendship bracelets at $30, to necklaces and earrings at $85, all the way up to a gold bangle-drop earring set that is marketed at $3,150.
DESCRIPTION
Suda studied art history and history as a college student, but says she’s disappointed by how unexamined the history of the bombings on Laos remain in schools throughout the United States. When Suda started exploring the country, she was shocked at seeing bombs being detonated in clusters off the sides of rural dirt roads. It made a visceral impact on her, hammering home how much she didn’t know about the fraught legacy of the Vietnam War.
“Any place where conflict has existed you have this cycle of social scars that are generated beyond the generation that was actually engaged in the initial conflict. In the case of Laos, you have kids born 41 years after the war who have no sense of what the war was, but who are the ones encountering these dangerous objects in their land, who are dying and being maimed and going blind,” Suda says.She says part of the power of ARTICLE22’s designs comes from etching this reality in the minds of the greater public, while honoring the traditions and talents of Laos’s local artisans.
WHAT’S THE GOOD?
Suda says that one big component of the company’s mission is its environmental impact. Rather than recycling the materials from these bombs scattered across Laos, ARTICLE22 is “up-cycling” dangerous shrapnel into wearable works of art.
Beyond this is the direct human component of the company’s good works. The people who craft each piece make five to seven times more pay than what they would earn from the silver spoons they would normally sell on the local market. Suda says this is five times the hourly minimum wage they would receive.
ARTICLE22 partners with the Mine Advisory Group, for each piece that is made, three square meters of bomb-covered land is cleared. The advisory group also provides risk education workshops to communities that are impacted by the bombs. “This achieves the balance between people, planet, and profit,” Suda says. “It’s charitable because the more pieces we sell, the more unexploded bombs can be cleared. To us that’s what encapsulates what sustainability is.
WHAT’S NEXT
Moving forward, Suda says she can see her company expanding to other countries, but right now, they are doubling down on their efforts in Laos. They are partnering with outside artists, activists, and social influencers to spread the company’s message more widely. She says the goal is to help eradicate the threat of unexploded bombs in Laos. Eventually, she says, she foresees more of an expansion into textile work, but right now, the focus is on jewelry made from the costs of war.
"Jewelry" - Google News
December 26, 2019 at 10:40PM
https://ift.tt/2SxmICv
Good Company: ARTICLE22 Empowers Laotian Artisans to Make Jewelry From Vietnam War-Era Bombs - Barron's
"Jewelry" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2rkMtea
Shoes Man Tutorial
Pos News Update
Meme Update
Korean Entertainment News
Japan News Update
No comments:
Post a Comment