Kirsty Kirkpatrick - shortlisted for BFIIN award

I nominated Kirsty Kirkpatrick for the British Female Inventors & Innovators Network (BFIIN), Environmental section. She has been shortlisted. We are off to the Showcase, Conference & Awards - London, 24 April 2007.

Find out more about Kirsty below, and on her blogsite .


The product or service

Kirsty Kirkpatrick is a designer-maker and producer of uncommonly beautiful things. Her fashion accessory pieces demonstrate an imaginative approach to transforming waste into something covetable and unique. Using found furniture and recycled content materials such as paper; cardboard; wood and woodchips; textiles; plastics and rubber; steel; aluminium and other metals, brooches, necklaces, bags and bangles are created and sold at a popular East London market and also through a wholesaler in New York. In her own words: “The idea came from personal work. There are so many designers and makers in the world: I felt it was my role as a designer to create a product that creates less waste.” Her production methods design out waste wherever possible, and she has plans to explore new methods where no scrap-pile would exist. Her work is a fine, designed and distinctive example of increasing the number of recycled-content products in the market.






How did you identify that there was a need/market for this product or service and any difficulties that you foresee/experienced with taking it to market

Forum for the Future undertook a survey in which it was found that our future leaders “expect the world they’ll be living in to be technologically advanced, but environmentally impoverished” by 2031. Today’s consumer is more demanding: wishing to know the origin of their purchases, and the environmental impact. Kirkpatrick’s work offers connection to a forgotten history. Pattern and different materials communicate a sense of nostalgia updated. Hybrid items; the unique quality of her pieces inspire notions of mending and re-use - stitching into a piece of fabric highlights a beauty cared for. Having started to sell at a popular London market, the difficulty she now faces is securing funding and business advice to push her talent and aspirations in the right direction. Kirkpatrick intends to further explore the potential of her unique and covetable aesthetic, expanding her collection and looking at other design areas such as interiors.

(reference: Future Leaders Survey 2006-7)



Describe how your product or service fulfils the category criteria for eligibility

Kirsty Kirkpatrick has designed a selection of products, which include the following recycled content materials as mentioned above. Furthermore, her design and make process designs out usage of precious resources and reduces impact upon the environment wherever possible. Her construction process involves a mixture of lo-tec and digital: cutting, sanding – to shape the pieces; deconstruction; wood is sanded and stripped down:

- The waste from a bangle is used to create a necklace. Pattern is created first through hand-drawing, then computerised images.
- Images are then printed onto heat-transfer paper.
- The images are then transferred onto the object’s surface. No dyes; No water: Kirkpatrick makes a point of not printing with screens or using inks.

This is more environmentally friendly: no water pollution or by-products are produced, (as with screen printing), and less solvents are used than in techniques used by other designers. She uses Beeswax to seal heat-transferred pattern and other decorative parts are created using the lo-tec craft of embroidery.

Future aspirations include intensive research into developing plastics: creating a fabric from used materials. In terms of improving the production process, Kirkpatrick would like to explore etching and laser cutting, as the whole piece is used and pattern can be drafted onto the wood.

Kirsty Kirkpatrick’s design philosophy is in tune with the Environment Award message: she sees the lifespan of her products as going beyond the point of purchase: materials are biodegradable wherever possible and as the abandoned new material is transformed and given another use, often from function to adornment, they are used and loved by the new owner. The objects present the issue of recycling in a new and imaginative way: an extremely attractive take on an issue that is often preconceived as unimaginative and worthy.