A conversation with circular design duo and self taught sewers Ben & Frank on launching their workshop Wipwrk that diverts technical waste fabric from landfill into practical new products.

I first came across Wipwrks projects while climbing in Melbourne a few months back. Hardy chalk bags beautifully constructed from old outdoor gear (tents & webbing), a slippy, difficult fabric to tame and re-purpose. They were kind enough to invite me to their workspace to show me how they operate and share the story for anyone else interested in circular design. 

Ben & Frank's holding up a fresh batch of thier chalk bags and showinf us the broken tent graveyard  

How did Wipwrk Begin?

We both did an alterations course a few years ago. Just a 3 hour course, out of curiosity to learn how to repair our own clothes. Once we got over the initial frustrations and realised its just pieces of fabric held together by some thread, not rocket science, we got really excited. 

We started looking for scrap fabrics to experiment with and one of our friends mentioned off track (a Melbourne based supplier of high quality outdoor clothing). We just rocked up at the door and they gave us a tent to play with. I came back a few days later with a bunch of stuff i'd made from youtube tutorials. They qwew

Turns out they had a whole room full of damaged high quality technical gear they couldn't sell on, which made us think there is an untapped gap in the material supply chain here. 

Thats a lot of waste fabric...

Exactly, this stuff might not hold up to a cold camping expedition anymore, but its plenty strong enough for a tote bag to run your gear around. Often its just the seams of a tent that are compromised, so you have metres and metres of fabric to work with.

How many tents do you need to make a batch of chalk bags? 

The first batch we made up was 50 bags from 3 or 4 old tents. Theres a lot of old tents here...

Do you only work with exclusively with 'high end' old gear, say Patagonia, Northface etc...

To be honest, most tents actually have some really good fabric pieces regardless of initial price point once deconstructed. Its usually just balancing and re-enforcing whatever fabrics we work with to create structure and durability regardless of brand. Experimentation, user testing, adding webbings, fastenings etc...

You guys are self taught on the sewing machines?

Yes. Youtube, theres a channel called Glory Allen that was really helpful at first. We just spent hours and hours trying things out, googling really specific things. Modifying sewing machines. Experimenting. 

For the barrel chalk bag we made 5 bags, each identical a side from one very specific change, and tested that, and they repeat until you get it right. Also adding specific machines for each task makes everything so much easier. Zippers, webbing, binding. We've bought so many second hand machines.

You make everything by hand, here in Australia. Is that viable in the longterm? 

Its challenging. We need to justify a reason for every stitch we do, and the time it takes. We time everything down to the second. Franks engineering background comes into play here. We will decide on a total production time, say 5 minutes for each bag and experiment with batching until we hit it. Its working pretty well so far.

Local employment and sustainability are really important to us as a business. It doesnt make sense to be sending our fabric overseas to be made up, then sent back. In future perhaps a hybrid model of automation and highly skilled workers could improve efficiency's.

How important do you think sustainability of products is to consumers at the moment, is it the number one factor?

Its really interesting we did a survey with a load of people with our first round of chalk bags, around purchase decisions. Sustainability actually came in 4th after price, function and style. 

With that in mind, we are focusing on creating beautiful, fair priced products that stand on their own merit, with sustainability as the icing on top. 

Interesting, will that also influence your design aesthetic?

We try and keep things simple. Reductive standpoint. Keeping it simple. Small gestures, block colours. Most importantly hardwearing. The more connected someone is to a product emotionally the more they will take care of it, repair it, cherish it.

Commercial projects and consumer?

Our goal as a busines is to divert as much material from landfill as possible. We've found from a commercial perspective we can make a lot of the same product really quickly and get bulk orders from a business for instance.

You guys seem very productive. Any time management tips? 

We usually have a planning session on a Monday morning and use a task management tool called Notion to track out progress. We've also started time blocking certain tasks at the start of each day, and thats been really good in keeping us accountable.

Thats not to say we don't still end up working weekends and pulling super late evening shifts. I guess when theres just two of you trying to run 6 or 7 departments, it gets tricky. 

Longterm vision for the brand? 

I think it comes back to just diverting as much waste fabric from landfill as possible. We started out thinking that meant creating as many products as possible each year, but we're actually realising just nailing a few timeless pieces, and improving on them is actually a better way to go.
Theres a Scandinavian car company called Polestar who we really admire. They make a few, really simple models for a very particular customer segment. No crazy colours or features. 

 

Thats really interesting, who else inspires you guys? 

Theres so many. We were really inspired by Yvonne Chounnaird book let my people go surfing, so Patagonias got to be right up there for anyone in this industrys. From aesthetic perspective, theres a lot of japanese streetwear / outerwear brands we take influence from.

Then theres more abstract ones, like a local car manufacturer ran by a guy called Dave Bunch who reconditions old classic cars into electric vehicles. I think its important to look outside of clothing.

They say if you want to do great design works, dont study design, study the world, i like that idea...

Would you ever look to move into apparel?

We love apparel but apparel is really hard. Bags are more simple shapes to nail and not as complicated with fits and ergonomics. We've kind of got to sail within our means for now! 
 

You guys seem to have quite different skillsets, hows it been going into business as friends?

Good. Really good. We've got very different ways of how we approach the business which has its challenges but, on the whole, I think its been incredibly fruitful to this point.