Today, "upcycling" is the buzz word of the interiors and fashion industries, but, says Angus Middleton, director of environmental consultancy, Renaissance Regeneration and founder of ecoboom.co.uk, "it is often used wrongly as a sexy term for refurbishing old furniture, a bit like 'pre-loved' instead of second-hand, or 'modern antique' rather than junk.
Even designer-rich Elle Decor ran a big feature on "upcycling" a few issues back (revamping old furniture, essentially).
From carpets to tables and chairs, soap holders to candle holders, all sorts of new products highlight re-use, recycling and upcycling, encapsulating its sustainable cradle to cradle – rather than cradle to grave (or landfill) – philosophy.
The genius of designer Wilbert Das (former creative head at Diesel) was to blend chic, simple interiors that celebrate the vernacular with environmentally friendly touches: this quirky collection of casas was "upcycling" and "repurposing" before the in-crowd even knew the jargon.
Even if you're just reviving a second-hand piece of furniture with some Farrow & Ball paint or sticking bits of broken glass around a mirror, upcycling on a small scale still makes a difference, and the results might just surprise you.
While the PR-speak and corporate greenwash of some companies are to be avoided, there are increasing numbers of designers and makers who are upcycling for real.
The 33 on the bill are each using low-cost supermarket goods, including food and discarded packaging, which they are "upcycling" by turning them into new pieces of work.
She has been TerraCycle's chief designer for the last three years, fashioning "upcycling" prototypes like pencil cases from Capri Sun juice pouches and clocks made from circuit boards, and leading workshops on how to weave pet-food bags into wallets and totes, for example, as she did last year for the 700 employees of a Hungarian pet-food company.
Since then, she has made a wide variety of items, like luggage tags and Christmas stockings, out of recycled sailcloth, a process she refers to as upcycling.
In her statement for the exhibition, Somers questions peoples' seemingly unquenchable thirst to consume, and proposes that they might in turn become some of the objects they love to buy, thereby creatively upcycling some of the 465,000 liters of human ashes that are produced each day.
From a penchant for experimentation to "upcycling" — as opposed to recycling, fashion's sustainability movement — to British funk, in this video, here and above, Suzy takes us a journey to explore what sets London fashion apart.
