Shahar Livne talks about her upcoming jewelry for Balenciaga

Photo by Charlotte Kin

Born in Tel Aviv and based in Eindhoven, Shahar Livne is a conceptual material designer whose work explores the transformation of plastic waste in nature. She was recently awarded emerging designer of the year in 2020 by Dezeen.

In this interview, Livne and Bridget Cogley talk about her work with Balenciaga and the strides that sustainable design has already made. Livne graduated from the Design Academy Eindhoven in 2017 and launched her studio there shortly after. The Dutch city is celebrated as the world's design capital.

In much of her work, Livne speculates a future in which plastic waste permeates the earth’s surface and blends with natural matter to become an entirely new, valuable resource (like petroleum). She has recently made jewelry for Balenciaga using ocean-sourced plastic waste that was retrieved and cleaned by Oceanworks and other plastic from recycling facilities. To make the new jewelry material, which Livne calls “Lithoplast”, she combined this waste with calcium carbonate, a residue of the marble industry and a material that naturally takes part in the fossilization of organic matter. The collection for Balenciaga will launch in May.

Livne’s collaboration with Spanish brand Balenciaga includes bracelets, earrings and rings

BC: How was it working with a large fashion brand like Balenciaga? What was the process like?

SH: It was a great project. Our starting point was my material "Lithoplast", and Balenciaga first reached out to me about it. It was fitting for the Fall collection, which is about the year 2031 and how materials change and are reused. We had a lot of video calls and WhatsApp texting to fine-tune the idea and look, and also a lot of sending prototypes back-and-forth. The main challenge for me was that, because of the pandemic, we couldn't meet in person, which I think is very essential when you work with materials. But the team and I powered through and had good communication, so it all worked out great.

BC: What is it like being from Israel and living, and running a design studio, in the Netherlands?

SL: There are many internationals like me choosing to stay here after their studies, so we are a diverse community. I like the creative community in the Netherlands and the support designers get, which is a big advantage in comparison to other countries, and it is why I enjoy being based here.

BC: How would you describe your work to your grandma?

SL: I try to highlight the stories of materials and nature through design.

Photo by Alan Boom

BC: What’s the one most promising technology or development you think the industry should adopt more broadly?

SL: This is a tough question since there is no one answer. I think transparency and honesty within systems, so people can make their own decisions.

BC: What’s the one major thing you think has to happen right now to further efforts in sustainable design?

SL: For a few years now, there has been an interesting movement in design towards an awareness of the use of materials, systems, and critical design, from the younger generation to some major players in the field, and it is shifting the public eye towards being responsible consumers and critical thinkers. We see examples in the more artistic field with exhibitions such as Cambio by Formafantasma and Broken Nature by Paola Antonelli, and companies like Adidas and Kering with a big influence on fashion that make huge efforts in pushing the industry into a more aware direction. So the effort is already there, it just needs more time.

BC: Some people think sustainability isn’t the right word because it’s so vague and used for almost everything. How do you feel about this?

SL: I agree! The word “sustainability” has become a myth and a greenwashing tool and has lost its initial meaning. It is important to remember that the word “to sustain” can also refer to sustaining ourselves, and in that case, it can be a very anthropocentric notion. I can't come up with a replacement term, but I do think that a keyword should be “entanglement” when it comes to understanding the forces and systems that act around us.