Margherita Grassi makes embellishments from discarded oyster shells
Margherita Grassi is an Italian textile designer and recent Central Saint Martins graduate. She splits her time between London and Turin and is developing a collection of bio-based fashion embellishments made of discarded oyster shells, called Re-Pearls.
In this interview, she opens up about her experiences during the pandemic and shares her goal of showing the potential of circular materials for commercial use.
BC: How do you make your Re-Pearls?
MG: I wash the pearls thoroughly and break them to get a kaolin-like powder, then I re-assemble them with the help of a seaweed binder and finally, I varnish them so they are durable and waterproof. Because of this re-assembling process, I define them as re-generated embellishments.
My first batch was from the restaurant Prawn on The Lawn based in Islington, London. I gathered the shells from the restaurant every morning, as they saved the shells from the day before for me.
Now, in terms of sourcing, I have been selected by the chefs at Rocks Oyster, also based in London, to repurpose their waste shells as they are allowed to serve customers again.
“My work is about making use of the food industry’s waste.”
BC: What are you working on at the moment?
MG: I am dedicating myself to Re-Pearls fully and new opportunities for the project come in daily. I hope to find investors that can help me grow the business in order to fully make a change in the industry. On the side, I am also working as a design consultant for an upcoming sustainable fashion project. I hope to continue working and growing in the innovative materials sector as I find it an incredibly stimulating and necessary field to be in, especially in the years to come as we face climate change.
I have found finding work during the pandemic extremely hard and disheartening. Before February 2020, I had a series of job opportunities lined up in the commercial fashion industry but they all fell through as soon as Covid-19 hit. I have always been interested in sustainable materials, so I started experimenting with this project that I began researching for the year of my graduation in 2019 and that's how Re-Pearls came to be. I'm grateful that my disappointment pushed me to do what I always wanted to try and might have not being able to do if I worked in a traditional fashion job.
BC: What do you think about the word “sustainability”?
MG: I am not against the word sustainability. I do think the word resourcefulness could be an inspiring alternative, as the imminent lack of traditional sources should push people to look at existing and overlooked materials. Within my practice, I am infinitely inspired by the phrase “limitation breeds creativity” as it pushes me to create resourceful designs and outcomes.
BC: What’s the one major thing that needs to happen right now to further efforts in sustainable design?
MG: It’s very important for designers to make sure that the sustainable products they design can actually work in the industry in order to change it for the better, otherwise, they can end up being performative pieces that might be trendy at this moment in time (greenwashing) but don’t add value to the conversation on sustainable plastic alternatives.
“Making use of waste and normalizing businesses to share resources should be adopted.”
BC: The cost of something is most often on people’s minds before impact. What are some ideas to get more people on board?
MG: An imperfect sustainable lifestyle isn’t shown enough, and I believe allowing people to make changes within a margin of error is the best way to introduce improvements in a fast and efficient way.
Guilt and fear of making mistakes are very difficult feelings to overcome as a society based on old, firm institutions while trying to tackle climate action. These often cause the individual to freeze in survival mode in front of something as imposing as climate change, ultimately making no good to both the environment and the person’s own mental health. The process of making people act sustainably should be softer and more democratic, where every person does what they can, only then we will see an increase in positive numbers.
BC: What’s the one most promising technology or development you think the industry should adopt more broadly?
MG: Making use of waste and normalizing businesses to share resources with other businesses in order to create a chain; to stop using virgin materials, and ultimately to allow a cycle to take place.
At the moment, many laws are in place to discard waste in a severe and quick way, no matter what the condition of the products is, and, though they surely serve a purpose in the industry, they also harshly stop a cycle that could serve the community of people around them –e.g. unsold food destroyed by supermarkets when it could be given to people suffering from food insecurity.
BC: How do you describe your work to your grandparents?
MG: I am a textile designer that grew frustrated with the pollution and waste that my industry produces, especially when it comes to embellishments, often made of plastic and/or problematic materials. As a result, I am now a material designer trying to solve this issue by creating a bio-based alternative. I gather used oyster shells donated to me by seafood restaurants and, through a series of processes, I re-generate them as embellishments.
My grandparents and their generation are used to the notion of making buttons and pearls from shells, so they don’t question it as much. My work is just about re-inventing the process with the same source by making use of the food industry’s waste.
