What does Black Friday really mean for sustainable businesses? An interview with Elvis & Kresse
This month, we interviewed slow luxury brand Elvis & Kresse, which converts waste materials into beautiful lifestyle accessories, diverting fire hoses and other niche materials from landfill. They have a pretty clear stand point on Black Friday and what it means to sustainable businesses, totally worth checking it out… Read on and enjoy!
For those unfamiliar, please introduce yourself and your badass brand?
My name is Kresse Wesling, I am the Co-Founder of Elvis & Kresse. We essentially do 3 things. We rescue materials that would otherwise go to landfill, transform them into beautiful things and donate 50% of the profits to charity.
Kresse Wesling CBE from Elvis & Kresse
What inspired you to start Elvis & Kresse, and how has it evolved over the years?
I fell in love with Duraline hoses the moment I saw them in 2005, piled up on a rooftop at a fire station in Croydon, awaiting an imminent and undignified death in landfill.
Fire hoses are decommissioned for one of two reasons, they either reach the 25-year end of their health and safety life or they are too damaged to repair. They either miraculously survive 25 years of heroic active service, or they die trying.
We weren’t entrepreneurs in search of an idea, we didn’t set out to make luxury accessories. We simply wanted to save the hose. We couldn’t let these lustrous, durable, life-saving coils of deep red nitrile rubber go.
We started with a simple range of belts and slowly grew from there. Since 2005 we have rescued all of London’s decommissioned hoses and donated 50% of the profits to the Fire Fighters Charity. These hoses are still working hard, long after their first life. Imagine that, hoses that were supposed to die in landfill are helping injured firefighters. We now rescue 15 different materials and have recently relocated ourselves and our workshop to a farm where we are launching a regenerative agriculture project.
“Don’t buy anything from a company that isn’t happy to show you its entire supply chain and can prove what their goods are made from, all the way back to the source.”
Are all of your products made from rescued materials, what made you adopt this approach?
All of our products are made from rescued materials. We simply cherish what we find. We add design, craftsmanship, love… When I moved from Hong Kong to the UK in 2004 I spent a lot of time in landfills, and discovered that in that year alone 100 million tonnes of waste was buried. I felt capable of solving this problem, or at least a part of it… and that made me responsible.
Elvis & Kresse Head Craftsman, Dani, at their workshop in Kent, UK.
So, let’s talk about Black Friday! What are your feelings towards it?
To put it very simply, we don't like Black Friday. We don't participate in Black Friday, other discount days or sales seasons.
Let me explain...
1 - Elvis & Kresse is not a fast moving consumer goods brand. We aren't fast at all. We are slow. Our materials are rescued and their transformation takes time. We build to last, not for obsolescence.
2 - We believe in good value every day, not just for a few days each year. Our pricing is based on labour, creativity and innovation; we have a highly skilled team, our goods are labour intensive and built to last. Our prices reflect the costs of running a pioneering ethical and sustainable business, which is more interested in impact than profit.
3 - We don't do seasons. We don't have different pieces for different times of the year, and we certainly aren't interested in the weekly collections or even 'daily-drops' being released across the fashion industry. Seasons or other forms of entrenched 're-freshing' naturally result in over-production and waste.
4 - We produce in small batches and when these are sold we make more. We don't overproduce without knowing what works. This means we don't end up with dead-stock that we could only sell at a discount.
5 - Concentrating such a frenzy around a few random days of the year, like Black Friday, Cyber Monday, China's 'Singles Day', Boxing Day, or any other seasonal sales days would be unsustainable for our small team. We have a happy team. There is no need to inject this kind of stress that might lead to purchases without thought and feeling.
6 - Elvis & Kresse are different by design. Always have been, always will be. The world, as it is, isn't good enough. If we want it to change, we have to behave differently. We have to hold ourselves to a higher standard. We can't simply lament, we have to act.
Beautiful bags handmade from rescued materials.
What impact do you hope to see in the future Elvis & Kresse have on consumer behaviour?
In the beginning we just wanted to save the fire-hoses. Since then the mission broadened, we wanted to eliminate waste by showing how inspiring and valuable it can be. This is currently where our impact is. But our mission has grown again. I don’t see Elvis & Kresse as a business, but as a solution. The capacity to do good was paramount and much more important than trying to mitigate harm. We talk about our rights as humans but so seldom our obligations and that’s the dialogue I think really needs to change.
Our cultivation of a solution for the fire hose issue became an effective and beautiful design of belts, bags, and other accessories but our model was much more than that. We wanted to challenge the way we manufactured, where we manufactured these goods and what we did with the profits – donating 50 per cent back to charity, using renewable energy and making all our packaging from other rescued materials.
Recently, in collaboration with Queen Mary University, we have been able to invent an entirely new technology - our Solar Forge - which is open-sourced, entirely renewably powered, and donated for the world to use. Our next venture is regenerative agriculture and it is the reason why we have moved to a 17 acre farm.
You also must remember that you can’t solve a big problem sustainably if your solution causes other problems. We serve on the board of charities, are a certified Social Enterprise and B Corporation, an accredited real Living Wage Employer, make our packaging from reclaimed materials, offer local employment to our workers, scholarships for those wanting to learn the trade and donate profits to good causes to mention a few things. We also strive to always do better.
Do you think people are less inclined to shop from slow fashion brands like yours?
I don’t think so - the growth in sustainable luxury is incredible. We have seen nothing but rapid growth since 2005.
We started with just the two of us, a single belt design, and turnover of just £8,000 in the first year but now produce tens of thousands of products a year, employing 25 staff.
To Elvis and I our customers are our partners, they are like solid gold. Even the lockdown didn’t hold us back. Thanks to our local approach to production, we were able to keep making products by re-choreographing our production and even moving some sewing machines to the homes of our employees.
The authenticity of our brand is that we deliver, every day, on these promises and I think customers are becoming more and more aware and appreciative of this. We don’t need a marketing strategy; the truth is interesting enough.
The Elvis & Kresse Team
What do you think it will take for individuals to reassess their relationship with consumption?
For some people it starts with becoming a parent, for others it is watching a documentary or following the climate crisis in the news. Unfortunately there is no single trigger or source of epiphany on this one.
What we need is a global cultural shift where we learn how to create value rather than money, and happiness rather than “stuff”. Businesses, governments, individuals…. We all need to step up in order to drive this change.
What’s the best thing we can do as consumers to support smaller, slower brands, and help reevaluate our relationship with consumption?
Call us, come and see us, share our stories! Don’t buy anything from a company that isn’t happy to show you its entire supply chain and can prove what their goods are made from, all the way back to the source.
What’s been your most recent Good Find?
The podcast series ‘This is Love’ by Phoebe Judge is just lovely. It is such a tonic in the face of the climate and biodiversity crises.
Keen to meet more sustainable brands fighting to reduce waste? Check out our Waste Warriors Collection.
Interview and edits by Nohelia Rambal