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The Guardian
19-07-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
From landfill to luxury: how a designer uses scraps from Hermès and Chanel to make leather goods
After more than a decade as a fashion designer, Dana Cohen was disillusioned. Excessive waste was rampant in every part of the industry – from surplus samples, to manufacturing scraps, to retail stores with 'a disheveled mountain of garments that nobody wanted', she said. 'I was like, 'I just don't want to be a part of it any more.'' Then Cohen, who had designed for brands including Banana Republic, Club Monaco and J Crew, had a chance encounter with a manufacturer that changed her course. Drishti Lifestyle, based in India, had a container full of leather scraps it didn't want to discard. Together they experimented, and made some wallets and a handbag, all of which sold out. That was the very start of Cohen's sustainable leather accessories company – and her mission to make a dent in the industry's immense waste problem. Launched in November 2019, Hyer Goods sells bags, wallets and other accessories made entirely from deadstocks: leftover scraps that would otherwise end up in landfills. Specifically, it uses luxury leather leftovers, retrieved from designer heavyweights like Hermès, Chanel, and Valentino. Deadstocks are sourced both directly from Italian factories – such as a tannery in the outskirts of Naples, Russo di Casandrino – and via 'people on the ground' in Italy who have longstanding relationships with those brands. The scraps are then transported to family-run factories in Italy's Marche region, on the Adriatic coast: a mother-daughter-run factory produces the bags, and down the road, a father-son-run factory assembles the wallets. 'We literally load the scraps from the bags in a little car and drive it to the wallet factory,' Cohen said. Designer brands typically only use the very highest grades of leather, so Hyer takes the 'off-cuts' that are still above par, but may have blemishes like tick bites or stretch marks, and cuts around them. Given the reliance on whatever is available, the Hyer collection is inherently small-batch, and a single line of bags might comprise a mix of different leathers. 'We have never made 500 pieces of anything,' Cohen said. The unpredictable supply can be hard. 'It's not for the faint of heart,' Cohen said. But she estimates this model has kept approximately 7,000 pounds of leather in circulation – and out of landfills – over the last six years of operation. It's a start in healing an industry that sends about 92m tonnes of textiles to landfills every year, producing between 4% and 8% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions. 'I appreciate any company that's really trying to work towards the circular economy,' said Ann Cantrell, associate professor of fashion business management at New York's Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT), 'which is trying to keep things in the loop as long as we can and not go to landfill.' She said Hyer Goods's model followed the 'triple bottom line': operating not only for profitability, but also for improving conditions for people and for the planet. If more businesses operate with such models, they can 'continue to challenge the status quo' around issues like the overuse of virgin materials, she said. Leather is particularly troublesome for its connection to cattle ranching, which is linked to deforestation, mass water use and the emission of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Tanning also uses toxic chemicals that can contaminate waterways. On the other hand, leather is an extremely durable product, sometimes lasting decades. 'So from that perspective, it is a sustainable material,' said Cantrell. Sustainability is nuanced. 'There's no perfectly sustainable material,' said Elizabeth Cline, an author and expert on fast fashion and sustainability. But Cline said repurposing genuine leather is better than producing so-called vegan leather, or faux leather, which is made of plastics, even when it also contains some plant-based materials like cork or apple peels. 'You're eliminating the animal welfare issue, but creating new environmental problems,' she said. The reality is that high-end consumers are still buying genuine leather. While Hyer's average customer is the sustainable-minded person looking for greener alternatives, Cohen said she is starting to see more luxury-driven customers. Hyer's bestselling Ring Bag, made from lambskin Nappa, a premium leather known for its softness, typically sells for $465 – nothing to sneeze at but still a far cry from luxury brands that retail for several thousand dollars. Cohen launched Hyer Goods just months before the pandemic. People weren't buying fancy handbags during lockdowns so she briefly pivoted to sewing masks with leftover fabrics – even curtains – that she crowdsourced on social media. Consulting followers for opinions has continued to be a strategy. 'I think people really like being a part of the process,' she says. 'Not only is it a great way to connect with community, but it's a really good way to make smart decisions.' Soon, the bags gained the attention of influential figures like Katie Couric and the internet chef Alison Roman. When Roman recommended the bags to her followers: 'That was one of the best days for us, ever,' Cohen said. Major brands like Bloomingdales, Nordstrom and Madewell now sell Hyer Goods bags, and in 2024, Cohen opened a brick-and-mortar store in New York's West Village after winning a grant from the non-profit ChaShaMa, which supports women and minority artists by providing them with subsidized real estate spaces. Beginning April, the Trump administration imposed 10% tariffs on goods from Italy, leaving Cohen little choice but to raise prices. The price bumps initially led to a 'huge dip' in sales, she said. Volumes seem back to normal now, though that's hard to parse out due to seasonal shifts. 'I'm not sure if the customer has gotten used to it, but I certainly haven't,' she said. (In July, Trump announced additional tariffs on European goods, which European trade officials said would make continuing US-EU trade ''almost impossible'.) Cohen said she had no plans to move operations to the US; many factories that she had considered weren't capable of details like edge painting (to protect leather edges from fraying), which would sacrifice quality. 'The craftsmanship that you can get in Italy just doesn't compare,' she said. ''Made in USA was just not an option.' Cohen, who has five part-time employees, said she'd like to expand products into belts and shoes, start sourcing deadstock Italian cottons, and open a second store, perhaps in Brooklyn. She'd like to be fully circular, including hardware like zippers, which are not made from scraps. But economic volatility – and simply the nature of a bootstrapped business that depends on a fluctuating supply – have delayed some of those plans. 'Any dreams I had, I've put on hold,' she said. 'Right now it's just: how can we stay afloat?' But nothing has changed her mission, which comes before any growth ambitions, she said. 'My goal was never to be a behemoth organization,' Cohen said. 'I just want to have a nice, small business for people who care.'
Al Jazeera
17-07-2025
- Sport
- Al Jazeera
Famous skydiver Felix Baumgartner dead after paragliding accident in Italy
Renowned extreme athlete Felix Baumgartner, most famous for jumping from a record 39 kilometres (24 miles) at the edge of space in the 2012 Red Bull Stratos project, has died in a paragliding accident in Italy on Thursday. The 56-year-old Austrian crashed his paraglider in Porto Sant'Elpidio, situated on the Italian Adriatic coast, after losing control and plunged into a wooden structure next to a swimming pool of the Le Mimose Family Camping Village, according to Italian media reports. A female hotel employee was injured by a piece of debris and taken to hospital with neck injuries. Baumgartner died at the scene of the accident, and investigations into the circumstances of the accident are under way. Italian media reported that Baumgartner had already lost consciousness in the air. The city's mayor, Massimiliano Ciarpella, confirmed Baumgartner's death in a social media post. 'Our community is deeply affected by the tragic disappearance of Felix Baumgartner, a figure of global prominence, a symbol of courage and passion for extreme flight,' the mayor said. Just two hours before his deadly crash, he posted on the social media platform Instagram with the foreboding caption 'too much wind'. From skydiving to the stratosphere Born in Salzburg, Baumgartner completed his first parachute jump at the age of 16 and later became a parachutist in the Austrian military. Baumgartner's reputation as an extreme sports athlete grew exponentially when he turned his hand to the sport of base jumping in the 1990s. He set a new world record for the highest base jump from a building with his leap from the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in 1999. Later that year, he completed a base jump from the famous statue of Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. On July 31, 2003, Baumgartner again made global headlines for his base jumping feats when he became the first person to cross the English Channel in free fall after jumping out of a plane equipped with specially developed wings made of carbon. But it was Baumgartner's record-breaking free fall from space in 2012 that shot the Austrian to worldwide fame. Over the desert of New Mexico, he jumped from a helium balloon almost 39km (24 miles) above the planet and became the first person to break the sound barrier in free fall. Baumgartner set three world records for his jump: He reached a maximum speed of 1,357.6 kilometres per hour (834mph), or Mach 1.25; completed the highest jump at 38,969 metres; and recorded the longest free fall with a length of 36,402 metres. His death was confirmed late on Thursday by the energy drink company Red Bull, which sponsored many of Baumgartner's stunts.
The Guardian
17-07-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
From landfill to luxury: how a designer uses scraps from Hermes and Chanel to make leather goods
After more than a decade as a fashion designer, Dana Cohen was disillusioned. Excessive waste was rampant in every part of the industry – from surplus samples, to manufacturing scraps, to retail stores with 'a disheveled mountain of garments that nobody wanted', she said. 'I was like, 'I just don't want to be a part of it any more.'' Then Cohen, who had designed for brands including Banana Republic, Club Monaco and J Crew, had a chance encounter with a manufacturer that changed her course. Drishti Lifestyle, based in India, had a container full of leather scraps it didn't want to discard. Together they experimented, and made some wallets and a handbag, all of which sold out. That was the very start of Cohen's sustainable leather accessories company – and her mission to make a dent in the industry's immense waste problem. Launched in November 2019, Hyer Goods sells bags, wallets and other accessories made entirely from deadstocks: leftover scraps that would otherwise end up in landfills. Specifically, it uses luxury leather leftovers, retrieved from designer heavyweights like Hermes, Chanel, and Valentino. Deadstocks are sourced both directly from Italian factories – such as a tannery in the outskirts of Naples, Russo di Casandrino – and via 'people on the ground' in Italy who have longstanding relationships with those brands. The scraps are then transported to family-run factories in Italy's Marche region, on the Adriatic coast: a mother-daughter-run factory produces the bags, and down the road, a father-son-run-factory assembles the wallets. 'We literally load the scraps from the bags in a little car and drive it to the wallet factory,' Cohen said. Designer brands typically only use the very highest grades of leather, so Hyer takes the 'off-cuts' that are still above par, but may have blemishes like tick bites or stretch marks, and cuts around them. Given the reliance on whatever is available, the Hyer collection is inherently small-batch, and a single line of bags might comprise a mix of different leathers. 'We have never made 500 pieces of anything,' Cohen said. The unpredictable supply can be hard. 'It's not for the faint of heart,' Cohen said. But she estimates this model has kept approximately 7,000 pounds of leather in circulation – and out of landfills – over the last six years of operation. It's a start in healing an industry that sends some 92m tonnes of textiles to landfills every year, producing between 4% and 8% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions. 'I appreciate any company that's really trying to work towards the circular economy,' said Ann Cantrell, associate professor of fashion business management at New York's Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT), 'which is trying to keep things in the loop as long as we can and not go to landfill.' She said Hyer Goods's model follows the 'triple bottom line': operating not only for profitability, but also for improving conditions for people and for the planet. If more businesses operate with such models, they can 'continue to challenge the status quo' around issues like the overuse of virgin materials, she said. Leather is particularly troublesome for its connection to cattle ranching, which is linked to deforestation, mass water use, and the emission of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Tanning also uses toxic chemicals that can contaminate waterways. On the other hand, leather is an extremely durable product, sometimes lasting decades. 'So from that perspective, it is a sustainable material,' said Cantrell. Sustainability is nuanced. 'There's no perfectly sustainable material,' said Elizabeth Cline, an author and expert on fast fashion and sustainability. But Cline said repurposing genuine leather is better than producing so-called vegan leather, or faux leather, which is made of plastics, even when it also contains some plant-based materials like cork or apple peels. 'You're eliminating the animal welfare issue, but creating new environmental problems,' she said. The reality is that high-end consumers are still buying genuine leather. While Hyer's average customer is the sustainable-minded person looking for greener alternatives, Cohen said she is starting to see more luxury-driven customers. Hyer's bestselling Ring Bag, made from lambskin Nappa, a premium leather known for its softness, typically sells for $465 – nothing to sneeze at but still a far cry from luxury brands that retail for several thousand dollars. Cohen launched Hyer Goods just months before the pandemic. People weren't buying fancy handbags during lockdowns so she briefly pivoted to sewing masks with leftover fabrics – even curtains – that she crowdsourced on social media. Consulting followers for opinions has continued to be a strategy. 'I think people really like being a part of the process,' she says. 'Not only is it a great way to connect with community, but it's a really good way to make smart decisions.' Soon, the bags gained the attention of influential figures like Katie Couric and internet chef Alison Roman. When Roman recommended the bags to her followers: 'That was one of the best days for us, ever,' Cohen said. Major brands like Bloomingdales, Nordstrom and Madewell now sell Hyer Goods bags, and in 2024, Cohen opened a brick-and-mortar store in New York's West Village after winning a grant from the nonprofit ChaShaMa, which supports women and minority artists by providing them with subsidized real estate spaces. Beginning April, the Trump administration imposed 10% tariffs on goods from Italy, leaving Cohen little choice but to raise prices. The price bumps initially led to a 'huge dip' in sales, she said. Volumes seem back to normal now, though that's hard to parse out due to seasonal shifts. 'I'm not sure if the customer has gotten used to it, but I certainly haven't,' she said. (In July, Trump announced additional tariffs on European goods, which European trade officials said would make continuing US-EU trade ''almost impossible'.) Cohen said she has no plans to move operations to the US; many factories that she had considered weren't capable of details like edge painting (to protect leather edges from fraying), which would sacrifice quality. 'The craftsmanship that you can get in Italy just doesn't compare,' she said. ''Made in USA was just not an option.' Cohen, who has five part-time employees, said she'd like to expand products into belts and shoes, start sourcing deadstock Italian cottons, and open a second store, perhaps in Brooklyn. She'd like to be fully circular, including hardware like zippers, which are not made from scraps. But economic volatility – and simply the nature of a bootstrapped business that depends on a fluctuating supply – have delayed some of those plans. 'Any dreams I had, I've put on hold,' she said. 'Right now it's just: how can we stay afloat?' But nothing has changed her mission, which comes before any growth ambitions, she said. 'My goal was never to be a behemoth organization,' Cohen said. 'I just want to have a nice, small business for people who care.'
Times
13-07-2025
- Times
Hotel Supetar Cavtat review: understated elegance on the Dalmatian Riviera
This classy hotel in the pretty town of Cavtat, on the Adriatic coast of Croatia, is housed in a handsome 1920s waterfront villa with the usual Dalmatian trappings of creamy stone and green shutters. Inside is a boutique lover's dream — it was transformed in 2022 from a humdrum three-star into an intimate, five-star bolt hole with a delightful garden, pool and sea-facing roof terrace. There is a definite sense of being looked after royally when you're offered a cold flannel and iced water immediately on arrival. The vibe is understated elegance throughout, from the 21 lovely rooms to the public areas with a changing roster of art exhibits. This article contains affiliate links, which may earn us revenue Score 8/10There's a calming mix of English and French country-house style and some bold design touches, including eye-catching (but not jarring) wallpaper in some of the rooms. Florals are fresh rather than chintzy, with hints of Englishness in the fabric headboards that come from Andrew Martin, based in Chelsea, west London. The whole effect is a soothing one, featuring light oak floors and marble bathrooms, with a touch of art nouveau in the tiling adding to a spacious and airy feel. There are 16 rooms in the main house and five in a neighbouring stone house, with views either of the seafront or the palm-shaded greenery of the gardens leading to the pool area. The smallest room in the main house comes with a little patio — if you'd like it ask for room No 107. • Discover our full guide to Croatia Score 9/10You'll eat well here. Not surprisingly, the restaurant's Mediterranean-Croatian menu is heavy on local seafood — crab, octopus, swordfish, dentex fish and scallops from nearby Ston — while Istrian beef, Pag lamb and wild rabbit satisfy the carnivores. But it's all done with a delicate and assured touch. The setting is very romantic: a wide roof terrace with views of the sea for those sultry Dalmatian summer evenings. Sink into one of the squashy sofas for a cocktail before you eat. Breakfast is just as impressive, with most produce sourced from nearby suppliers. An expansive buffet of salad, meat, cheese, seafood, fresh fruit and pastries competes with a tempting menu of eggs cooked numerous ways, plus sausages, bacon and courgette fritters. One of the hotel's cosiest spots is its ground-floor bar, a clubby, cocoon-like space that has an excellent selection of wines, including those made from local grape varieties such as grk, posip and plavac mali. There's also a lounge terrace in the area between the hotel's two buildings. • Best Croatian islands to visit• Best luxury villas in Croatia Score 7/10Behind the hotel are the gardens, where you can relax under palm and citrus trees before walking up stone steps to the pool and flopping on one of the sunbeds. It's not a very big pool, but it is certainly a peaceful spot to while away the hours. The hotel's neighbouring building has massage rooms and a sauna, and guests are able to use the extensive facilities at its five-star sister property Hotel Croatia Cavtat, accessed via a shuttle. Here you can swim in the saltwater outdoor and indoor pools before drying off in the sauna or unwinding in the steam room. The resort also has loungers on the nearby beach that Hotel Supetar Cavtat guests can use for free. Score 8/10The hotel is in a prime waterfront spot in the main harbour, discreetly back from the water's edge. There is a beach just a few yards away, and if you continue along the footpath you can wander around the pine-shaded headland that forms one of Cavtat's two forested peninsulas. The town makes an appealing alternative base to Dubrovnik: it's only a 15-minute drive from the airport and boat trips to nearby islands are offered just a few minutes' walk from the hotel. You can also sail to Dubrovnik — or just hop on the bus if you're not in a hurry (about 40 minutes). Price B&B doubles from £427Restaurant mains from £33Family-friendly NAccessible N Mary Novakovich was a guest of Hotel Supetar Cavtat ( • Best things to do in Croatia• Best beaches in Croatia
