The reason why we are YUEN: The world of airbags that no one delves into ②
Hello, I'm Hasegawa, an EST support staff member.
The other day, my daughter came to me with a huge pile of clothes.
"Look Dad! He bought me a new one!"
He seemed very happy. It seems his grandparents bought it for him.
My daughter is an only child and her grandparents' only grandchild, so she receives a lot of love from the family.
This is truly a blessing for my child, and we should be grateful for this blessing, but at the same time,
"Knowing what is enough"
I think we need to continue to teach this as well.
This does not mean that children should force themselves to get used to a state of lack, but rather that parents want their children to develop the sense and way of thinking to be able to enjoy the current situation to the fullest through ingenuity and ideas, and to develop their own options for abundance, even if they feel that there is a lack in their current situation.
Human desires are limitless, and no matter how much we try to satisfy them materially, in the end we are left with a sense of lack. I believe it is important to find fulfillment by using ingenuity and ideas and having fun even when we feel a slight sense of lack.
There is a classic book called "Cheap Chic" published in the United States in 1975, which describes how to live a stylish and rich life without spending a lot of money. It was a very advanced idea for the time, and its contents are still very relevant today.
Rather than focusing on material wealth, the works capture fashion from multiple perspectives, including attachment, ingenuity, style, and health, proposing a variety of options for wealth.
Even if we pursue material wealth, there is a limit to how much wealth we can achieve. I want my child to find his own options for wealth and ways to enjoy it.
I think that the upcycled items we at YUEN create under the name rerer also share a similar theme to cheap chic. There is no need to choose upcycled items in terms of luxury, rationality, or performance, but rerer has many keywords such as "feeling a sense of attachment," "relatable to the story," and "something that is uniquely yours."
Last time, I wrote about part of the airbag story, one of the three most difficult processes, dyeing.
This time, we'll be talking about "cutting" and "sewing." After dyeing, we move on to cutting and sewing, which can also be quite difficult.
◆Cutting airbags is unpredictable. What makes upcycling difficult?
Traditionally, when making a product, there is a concept called "required length" which measures how much product can be made from a given amount of fabric.
It means that you need XX meters of fabric to make XX units of a certain product.
We purchase these and turn them into products.
However, this is not the case with airbags.
Airbags
・Driver's airbag
・Passenger airbag
・Side airbags
・Curtain airbags
There are many different types, each with a completely different shape.
Furthermore, the shape varies depending on the manufacturer and model, and there are countless types.
At YUEN, we use airbags from scrapped cars. We purchase these airbags by the kilogram and they are delivered stuffed into cardboard boxes. Of course, we can't choose the model or manufacturer of the scrapped car, so we just get a random selection of different types.
Therefore, it is not possible to accurately calculate how many units of a product can be made based on how many kilograms purchased.
The largest bag currently offered by rerer is a product called Sacoche, but the only bag of this size that can be produced from fabric is the driver's airbag.
In other words, even if we purchase a large number of airbags, we cannot make a single Sacoche if the driver's airbag is not included.
This is a fatal problem in terms of production management.
It is difficult to produce the intended items in the intended quantities, making it difficult to maintain a stable supply.
And there's more trouble to come.
◆Airbags are full of stitching and patches, a design that can only be achieved through upcycling.
In the event of an emergency, airbags inflate at incredible speeds of 100 to 300 kilometers per hour to save lives. Naturally, they have a three-dimensional structure to absorb the impact, and are not flat, but are made up of various joints.
Also, as I mentioned earlier, because it inflates at an incredible speed, reinforced stitching is used throughout to prevent it from bursting.
Some reinforced stitching areas have double or triple layers of fabric.
After dyeing, the fabric is cut, but as I mentioned in a previous blog, the fabric is dyed under high temperature and pressure, which means it is full of wrinkles.
After dyeing, the fabric is first cut, a process called "barashi." The three-dimensional structure is broken down into flat fabric. This cannot be done by machine, and is done entirely by hand.
After that, the fabric is ironed at high temperature to stretch out the wrinkles as much as possible. Ordinary nylon would melt, but 66 nylon has a special high melting point, so it doesn't melt at all.
This finally creates a flat piece of fabric (?), but the pieces are all different sizes and covered in stitches and printed stamps.
This flat airbag fabric is then cut using a pattern, and this process is also done entirely by hand.
It is an extremely difficult and nerve-wracking task to arrange the patterns so that the airbag fabric, which comes in all different sizes and shapes, can be used as efficiently as possible, while also taking care to ensure that the reinforcing stitching and printing stamps that are unique to airbags are placed in the best possible positions within the design.
What's more, this cutting isn't done with regular scissors, but with a heat cutter, which melts the fabric while cutting. This is to prevent the edges from fraying, and each piece is cut individually without using a serger.
Now that the cutting is finally finished, the next step is sewing.
◆ Sewing airbags is difficult even for professionals
After cutting the fabric, we ask a domestic sewing factory with highly skilled techniques that mainly handles bag sewing to sew it.
Airbags are extremely difficult to sew, as they are stiff, wrinkled, and difficult to stretch even with an iron, and there are many areas where stitching is difficult. Even in sewing factories that specialize in bags, it is extremely difficult to sew rerer products with consistent quality.
Although rerer's items are full of distinctive materials, the base design is very simple. This is because the materials are difficult to sew. The more complex the design, the higher the cost, and the higher the price we can deliver to our customers.
◆What is the fair price for upcycled products?
As I work with rerer and get involved in upcycling, I often hear the same thing from various customers, manufacturers, and store owners.
"These are things that would have been thrown away in the first place, so the materials are cheap, right?"
I think this is a perfectly reasonable opinion, and rerer items are by no means expensive.
However, this is just my personal opinion, but even gold and diamonds are originally free because they are natural resources.
It is made by digging deep underground, polishing and refining, and requires a great deal of equipment, technology and human effort, and its rarity gives it high value.
This is not to compare airbags to gold or diamonds, but upcycling also requires a great deal of technology, human effort, ingenuity, and ideas.
Although values vary from person to person, I believe that essential value lies in human power, ingenuity, and ideas. This is what gives rise to stories, fosters attachment, and creates something uniquely your own.
We at YUEN hope that our valuable upcycling ideas will be an option that our customers find valuable.
rerer｜Rere｜ is an upcycling brand that adds color to your everyday life – YUEN https://share.google/Ux4b6MD3Em8VWNYuc
