Hosewear is a young, environmentally friendly Estonian company (or dare I say startup) that makes bags out of recycled firehoses. Ironically, written-off firehose would otherwise be burnt.
Ivar Arulaid (22), the young man behind the project, contacted me about a year ago to discuss this up-cycling idea he had. I once led a successful project which made carrier bags out of used PVC ad banners of a supermarket chain, which were then sold in the very same chain, hence the contact.
Ivar was toying with the idea of using PVC banners for something, but ended up using firehose as the material. I like the idea of up-cycling and I liked the bag designs, so I volunteered to help with marketing and copywriting matters. This summer I also made a small investment in Hosewear. The current product line includes messenger bag, classic and laptop, as well as phone sleeve.
Ivar and his team partner Lee Sakk comment their business thus: “Firehoses are awesome. First and foremost they help to put out fires, but there’s one more thing. After their standard time of use is up, the material left over is still strong enough to take 20 bar pressure. When we found out that most firehoses are simply destroyed once they’ve been written off, it was immediately clear to us they need to be given a new life. We designed our bags to be practical and durable, plus we’ve added a touch of … firehoseness. Each item is unique, its wear and tear reflecting its past – but we think that all of them look great!”
Hosewear will not save the world, but there will be a little less smoke and waste due to its up-cycled bags, plus I hope you’ll agree the bags look damn good.
I
This article was first published by Andrus Purde on his blog.
Photos: Helin Loik and Hosewear.
So cool. They will be on my wish list for my next trip to Eesti.