UPCYCLED HATS MADE FROM VINTAGE BLANKETS

An old blanket. What can you do with it? Throw it away? This seems like the easiest option, but it is definitely not the best one. Julie Leclercq and Renee Brants, two students at the IDE faculty here at TU Delft, decided to turn vintage blankets into fashionable hats. This led to the sustainable start-up ‘TOR’.

by Isa Bingley

TOR basically was founded by accident. Although both Julie and Renee were already familiar with sewing, it was not necessarily the plan to start a whole company based on this hobby. What is the story around TOR? They already knew that they both were interested in clothing, so one day they decided to meet and just sit down in the garden with a sewing machine. They let their creativity flow and decided to turn an old blanket into a hat. The inspiration was to make a sort of bucket hat, but then without the bottom flap. This resulted in the current design of the TOR hats.

At first, Renee and Julie did not think of selling the hats, but as more people around them started to wear the hats, such as housemates, they realised that their design was actually quite cool. The popularity of the hats then started to grow more and more and at the end of September 2022 TOR was live. The hats are all made of 100% wool vintage blankets and are all handmade. I wondered whether it is difficult to get those vintage blankets, but they explained to me that they receive a lot of blankets from people around them or that they find them at Marktplaats or vintage stores. The blankets are often very old and contain a label with information about brand name and production place, which is often in the Netherlands. This keeps the brand more personal.

The use of vintage blankets does make it difficult to take into account the colour preferences of customers, but the unpredictability of what the hats will look like, is what makes the design even more unique. No two items look exactly the same. Besides the fact that the hats are made of second-hand materials, the whole production system of the company is as sustainable as possible. People can only pre-order the hats, which enables Renee and Julie to customize the size of the hats. This way, all hats are already sold beforehand and there are no leftovers. In order to ensure that there is no fabric left they asked themselves the following question: “How are you going to cut the fabric in order to make as many hats as possible out of it?”. The packaging of items often has negative effects on the environment. Therefore, the TOR hats are only packaged if customers cannot pick them up physically. When sending the hats, they only use a square box with a small paper card and a logo stamp.

So far, the hats have turned out to be quite popular, but what next? Will the brand remain about just hats? Julie and Renee are already brainstorming about how to expand their start-up, since the design of the hats is as good as finalized. In other words, the design will not change very much anymore.

The most important question I asked the TOR founders was what their main message or goal is with regards to the brand. They told me that the brand is about the reusing of materials and turning them into a unique design. They hope that if people know that the hats are made entirely by hand, they will value the product more and it will not disappear somewhere in the back of the closet like many fast fashion items.

The idea is to keep TOR a personal brand, and Julie and Renee want to keep on making products that they both support completely. Their designed hat is an accessory that stands out and is accessible for all. From young and hip to grandparents, the hats can be worn by everyone. So, next time you find an old blanket in your attic, know that you can do so much more with it than you think. It turns out that sitting down in the garden with a sewing machine can get your creative juices flowing!

Caspar Chorus was appointed as Dean of the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering (IDE) as of 1 September 2022. We, Sietske as member of the Board of ID Study Association and Tjerk as member of the Turn The Page committee, were able to interview Caspar in his room. In this interview we found out who Caspar is and what he has to say about our study, our faculty and its students.

by Sietske van Bakel and Tjerk van der Weij

T: How would you introduce yourself to IDE students?

C: Very importantly, I am not a designer or design researcher, but I have been an interested neighbour for a very long time. That’s a nice way to get into a faculty. I am open enough to learn a lot more. I am also someone for whom scientific work was ultimately not enough in terms of interest and challenge. At some point, that feeling started to grow stronger. I really like to work with scientists, and students for that matter, and I love the academic ecosystem, but I found it increasingly interesting to give direction and leadership to that. That’s also how I have developed in recent years.

T: So, what kind of things do you mean by more than science? Do you mean more managerial things or more the creative sides of IDE?

C: I would argue that most scientists are very creative, not just those at IDE. It is funny though, that I notice that in our faculty, creativity is also looked at in another way: in the form of creative expression. What a computer scientist does, we at IDE are likely to refer to as ‘science’ and what we do at IDE is then referred to as ‘creative’, but that computer scientist might justifiably also consider themselves very creative. Similarly, what we do is also science in that we develop new testable knowledge. At the beginning of the bachelor’s degree, we train our students to become scientifically informed designers. That means learning knowledge to design. In addition to the creativity that is partly already in you (and which can be further trained), you can develop and acquire such knowledge. This will make you a better designer. At the end of the master’s, you have developed into an academically trained designer, some of us even becoming design researchers by acquiring a PhD degree.

T: You have obviously learned by now how things are going at IDE. Are there still things you would like to change and put more of your own spin on?

C: Yes. We all have a mission to improve ourselves. Designers know this urge to improve like no other. After listening to my new colleagues a lot, I did start to see patterns, dots that I am trying to connect.

For example, I noticed that the balance between teaching and research within our faculty needs to shift a bit. We are a faculty, where quite rightly, there is a lot of focus on teaching, but where we also teach in a very intensive way. and because at a university, research and teaching should be intertwined, professors standing in front of the lecture hall also have to do research As a result, many people experience a lot of work pressure.

Combining research and teaching is an exciting process. As a teacher, I learned that I could best inspire my students by showing the international impact of my team’s research . What IDE does very well is to bring business and design practice into education. Where we can make further improvements as far as I am concerned, is to give professors time and headspace to elaborate their research and to weave that into education. That may lead us to use less intensive forms of teaching, and my guess is that that would benefit rather than harm the quality of our teaching.

Then I have one more: as faculty we could be more aware of the fact that we are here in Delft, as faculty within TU Delft. That we are world-class designers and design researchers in world-class high-tech ecosystem. That sets us apart enormously from a design school in a more artsy institution or a social sciences university. Part of that is seeing the benefits of connecting with other faculties at the TU.

I think we sometimes ignore the technological context a little too easily.

S: You also just mentioned briefly that it is sometimes uncomfortable to make changes like these. What exactly is uncomfortable about it?

C: The thing is, that I myself do not tend to find making these changes uncomfortable, but that this can make things uncomfortable for others around me. That is, I can sometimes be a bit too positive and enthusiastic about ‘moving forward’ and lose others in that. I am a huge optimist, to the point of being annoying. Over time, I have learned to listen more and not start talking right away. Otherwise, you might win a discussion, but you lose the relationship with people. It does not make sense if you walk around like some kind of clown, outlining change as something positive while people around you find it difficult.

S: How do you inhibit yourself in that?

C: A few honest colleagues made me aware of this, when I just started managing . In addition, close friends, and my partner and eventually my children, they are also very effective at taming my enthusiasm when needed.

S: The upcoming theme of the TTP is DARK. We start the TTP with the magazine feeling 'in the dark'. IDE students sometimes are not so sure where they are going. Your discipline deals with studying human choice behaviour. How do you think those two things connect?

C: Economists distinguish between risk aversion and ambiguity aversion. Risk aversion is when you know the odds when taking a risk. Ambiguity means you don’t know the odds. People are generally risk averse, but what people dislike much more than risk is ambiguity. That means people have an aversion to not knowing where they are going. Of course, life is ambiguous, rather than risky. What is also part of IDE, and what students also seem to have very much, is the idea that nothing is certain and everything may change; this is okay, but the difficulty is that this is no quantified and structured uncertainty. People find this very annoying. For example, students nowadays have so much more choice terms of study careers, than in my time. A lot more is possible, which also massively increases ambiguity levels.

T: How should IDE graduates deal with that?

C: IDE students are not unusual. All people struggle with ambiguity and uncertainty, they are very afraid of regret. I made a mathematical model that shows that in response, people are quick to choose the 'default' option. For example, if you are going to do something you have not never done before, say pursuing a master's abroad, you know that you will be able to compare the coffee, the people, the building and the lectures with what you already had, here at IDE. The regret you might feel when you deviate from something you already know, is salient because you can compare. If you stay, you cannot compare that well, as you simply don’t know the coffee or the students or the atmosphere abroad. So, regret aversion may lead to inertia. A recipe to still do something different from what you were already doing without risking too much regret is to choose compromise alternatives. We know that people trigger more regret when they choose extreme options. But by choosing perhaps not the coolest internship very far away, you can avoid regret as you approach things in a kind of calibrated way.

S: Did your own career path include compromising?

C: Well, I do have a tip which works for me in a career choice context: you can actually decide to like the things that you do as opposed to always asking yourself the question whether you like what you do. I also find that funny and a bit sad about your generation. They seem to have a lot of trouble with that, always looking for the most fun or the nicest or the most interesting path. This ensures a very intense journey, but also a tiring one with lots of scope for regret. By deciding to like what you do, things get more relaxed. This year, or any year, doesn't necessarily have to be the coolest year of your life. Stumbling in the dark is also part of life. Better learn to ‘like’ it.

S: Is this something you needed to discover for yourself or in which others had to steer you?

C: This is something we regularly have to remind one another of. For example, we seem to think that people should be urged by their manager to work harder and focus more. I have hardly ever had to do that – very few people are lazy, most have a tendency to work far too hard. Go read a book for a while, go for a run. That is what people often need to be more creative and effective.

S: As a final question: what do you hope the study program, or the faculty will have passed on to students, when they finish here?

C: Self-confidence. 3

When you come across an unfamiliar object, your creativity is triggered enormously. The same thing happened to the little mermaid when she found the dinglehopper. A little metal stick with four points at the end. Of course, we all know this is a fork, but Ariel decides to use it for combing her hair instead. This is what we call the mermaid effect. We at Turn The Page have a new object to put to the test, the bar of soap. In this experiment, we imagine to live in a world where a soap bar has not yet been introduced. You see it for the very first time. What do you think it is?

layout by Constantijn Hoctin Boes

“If I pretend to see a piece of soap for the very first time, I would probably use it as a brick and thus build houses or other buildings with it.”

“Soap? That must be a new toy for kids to play with. Because with some water you can make beautiful bubbles and they smell good too.”

“Ever wished your shoes would smell of lavender, roses or even Zwitsal? That they would not become saggy the more you wear them? Then this block of fragrance is perfect to place in your shoes when you are not wearing them. It makes sure they do not lose their shape and gives them a nice smell. With all the options you can choose a preferred odour to bathe your feet in to create a luxurious experience the next time you do your groceries, go for a run or just take the trash out. It is just like you are living at the spa. This has a scientific reason. You see, when your feet are cold your whole body feels cold. This applies to much more. When your feet are at the spa, you are at the spa.”

“Looking at this brick-shaped object in my hand, my first reaction would be to sniff it. Hmm smells good! It feels rather smooth, it is quite nice actually. Slowly, I take a small bite only to regret it a few seconds later. Blegh, not meant for eating, got it.”

“If I saw some pieces of soap, I would attach them under my shoes. Then I could use them as skates in the rain.”

“If I had never seen a piece of soap before, I would most certainly try to take a tiny little bite out of it. Spitting it out right after and watching it slowly slip away from me, leaving me in a bubbly sense of confusion.”

“Looking from beneath, a rounded brick of pinkness lays on top of the table. My eyes squinted, fully enclosing this object from its surroundings, I grasp out with the tips of my fingers. In a moment of irresistibility, I hastily seize this object, making it slip even further away. When pulling my hand back I inhale the scent of a field of blooming flowers. The aroma reminds me of a soft morning in the dim light of spring. What was this object that for a moment turned my dull afternoon into a sunny spring day?” 3