Why a Genius Dressmaker Is Upcycling Dirty Moto Jackets
There’s a curious assortment of tools at Eden Tan’s disposal. An array of wrenches, an industrial heat gun, and a paint roller are all pinned in assigned spaces and, as Tan turns his camera around to show me more of his compact London studio, the designer reveals drills, clamps, 3D printers, a homemade video rig hanging from the roof, and two sewing machines tucked into the far side of a room that can barely contain it all.
By Eden Tan’s own admission, it’s chaos.
Certainly, it’s not how you’d expect a fashion studio to look, mostly because of the power tools. But there isn’t a single bolt of fabric in sight, either — peculiar for any fashion designer but especially strange for one who made a name creating dresses still attached to the rolls of material they came from. That was Tan’s Central Saint Martins graduate collection, presented two years ago, which earned him the L'Oréal Professional Young Talent Award (a prize previously awarded to Grace Wales-Bonner and Craig Green) and had the fashionable side of the internet in a chokehold. It made him the name to watch from the most esteemed fashion school in Europe.
Tan has since moved on, though. Instead of chasing more virality with more groundbreaking dressmaking, he’s focused entirely on finding inventive ways to upcycle scuffed-up old goods.
“I wasn't trying to go for virality with that graduate show,” says Tan. “That wasn't the end goal.” He spent the six months following the show sending dresses out for magazine shoots and for celebrities to wear at glitzy events like the Cannes Film Festival. Then, he began a period of introspection.
“Over the past two years, I've tried to work out what my place is in the design world,” Tan says. “I feel like now I understand it.”
Eden Tan’s most recent offering was a world apart from his graduate-show clothes. Sold by London boutique LN-CC by way of an invite-only event and in-store installation, the collection encompasses backpacks formed from cleverly disassembled leather racing jackets and “Boot Bags” made of women’s shoes.
To create the former, Tan disassembles old scuffed racing jackets, often those from moto label Alpinestars, and reuses every part: the zipper becomes the bag’s opening, the sleeves are turned into straps, and the collar transforms into a handle. Drawing around traditional paper patterns is too difficult with this rigid fabric, so he’s fixed a projector onto the ceiling that beams down the shape of every panel onto the jackets for him to cut around.
“The things we buy, or at least the garments we buy, all they do is depreciate in value,” explains Tan. With these bags, he is “taking old materials and rehabilitating the feeling of newness in them.”
His thrifty process necessitates that, despite every jacket undergoing the same process, the results are unique, each item beholden by the patina of its past life. “I don't necessarily find the sustainability angle interesting, I don't think it adds to the design,” says Tan. “What I think is more interesting is how the character of the jacket continues into the bag. Before I put the collar back on, it has no soul. Then, as soon as you put the collar on, you can see the shape of the jacket in the bag.”
Tan’s backpacks, high-heeled handbags, and lighter holsters sculpted from discarded bicycle tyre inner tubes make up Eden Tan’s entire output. And half of the industrial tools in his studio are solely used to pick apart all these thick discarded leathers and old tyres. The rest are utilized for ETMFG, his line of high-end bespoke designs.
ETMFG commissions range from seemingly moist silver leather armor for Mexican-American singer Omar Apollo to a leather belt of salvaged car bits for Travis Scott. To complete a request for Drake, Tan used a turkey baster and a car jack to feed silicone into a 3D-printing machine to create an injection-molded compression sleeve. The result was his favorite project to date. “I love how that whole process contrasts with what you'd expect the glitz of a world tour to be,” laughs Tan.
Tan’s been splitting his focus between his two lines, ETMFG and Eden Tan. The output of both labels is irregular — only one person is producing it, after all — and both utilize low-tech design solutions out of necessity. That could be changing, though.
At the beginning of next year, Tan will begin an 18-month residency at the Paul Smith Foundation, giving him access to a Central London studio and 60 hours of mentoring. Here, he plans to finally follow up that lauded graduate show with a full clothing collection.
“I think it is really important to make clothes. That is how you build the world,” says Tan. “But I'm glad I've taken the time, because now what I want to do is quite different. I’m trying to give as much creative freedom to Eden Tan as possible.”
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