Eco-warrior entrepreneur, James Marshall, is making clothes from abandoned tents collected from music festivals—and the line debuted this month on the London Fashion Week catwalk.
The 24-year-old spent the last year scouring campsites and collecting abandoned tents following the Eden Festival in the Scottish Borders and Kendal Calling in the Lake District.
With the help of his friends and family, he amassed around 300 tents which were then turned into trendy bucket hats, bumbags, and jackets by fashion designer Imogen Evans.
“We also worked with a charity in England who collect tents at the end of festivals and give them to refugees,” said Marshall. “They don’t normally collect broken tents, but they did and then sent them all over to us.”
The ultra-sustainable jacket was modeled on the catwalk at London Fashion Week in February under the brand name 10T.
“London Fashion Week was a really good experience. The days were pretty stressful, but it was such a good feeling to get that recognition,” says Marshall. “It was nice to have the validation that the process and idea works and that we can take the idea to market and continue with it.”
Marshall, who graduated from Edinburgh Napier University in 2018 with an MSC in Environmental Sustainability, came up with the idea for the 10T project the year he finished his studies. Shortly after he got his degree, he launched the brand.
The firm, which also produces duffel bags made from ground-up tent sheets, is hoping to sell their products online in mid-March—just in time for the festival season.
“We will stick with collecting from sources ourselves, but we will start looking at other forms of waste,” he added. “We already have a few ideas.
“What I want to hold on to is that we collect, manifest, sort, and clean the materials and make the products ourselves.”
Source: GNN
