While most of us are taking to the skies now that travel restrictions are largely lifted, it’s now also possible to take a piece of the plane home with you – quite literally speaking.
Bynd Artisan and Singapore Airlines have teamed up to bring us limited-edition pieces featuring the iconic airline’s business-class leather seats and their signature batik print, now repurposed into beautiful home accessories such as a watch and valet tray. Named The Upcycling Project, this initiative reduces waste by giving new life to parts of their retired commercial aircraft.
We chat with James Quan, chairman and founder of Bynd Artisan, to find out more about the collaboration.
How did the collaboration with Singapore Airlines come about?
Sustainability is something that we care about and it is in the brand’s ethos to minimise waste and impact to the environment. We were approached and had our first meeting with the Singapore Airlines team back in February 2021 and learned about The Upcycling Project. It was then that we knew we had to come on board this meaningful project to pay homage to our national airline and curate a series of lifestyle items with the upcycled and repurposed parts and materials from their retired commercial aircraft.
We understand the leather is upcycled from their business class seats. What role does Bynd Artisan play in the processing of the leather?
There was a lot of work involved behind the scenes even before the prototyping and production stages. We knew right off the bat that we wanted to create a series of lifestyle items using the leather of the Business Class seats when we visited the Singapore Airlines warehouse where all the parts and materials from their retired commercial aircraft were kept. Keeping with the theme of sustainability meant that we had to keep material wastage to a minimum. To achieve this, we had to consider the surface area of each leather piece from the Business Class’ seats before deciding on the design and quantities we could produce per SKU.
Quality checks were carried out to ensure the upcycled leather pieces were in good condition before they enter the production process where the leather was trimmed to size and thoroughly cleaned before being assembled into the series of lifestyle items in the collection. With the extensive production process and other planning in place, the collection was launched in August 2022 even though the first meeting was in February 2021.
What were the design considerations that went into the conceptualisation of each product? Why did you choose to come up with a phone and name card stand, for example?
We wanted to create an exquisite collection of accessories for the home and for you, something different from Bynd Artisan’s existing product range that our consumers already know us for. The Phone & Name Card Stand was an idea that was conceptualised during the period when working from home was the default arrangement. We considered the usability and thought the stand would make a perfect work desk accessory to organise small items and prop up mobile phones or tablets as one goes through their day’s work. It’s proving to be a hit as it’s the second best-selling item within the collection which caught the team by surprise. Likewise, the Watch & Valet Tray Stand seems to have also struck a chord with people as we’re about to sell them out.
As this is a limited-edition collection, can we still look forward to more of such collaborations in future?
We are always on the lookout for new collaborations that are out of the ordinary. Collaborations should preferably help us to reach out to new audiences and extend our brand halo to a wider demographic. Today, Bynd Artisan is a well-loved local brand. We hope for our business to extend beyond our shores so we can delight an even wider audience. We are working on launching our Australia site and a pop-up in USA very soon.
Shop the collection at www.byndartisan.com.