“Trash to Treasure” - a Q&A with GINA GRNW
We catch up with Gina Grünwald, founder of zero waste studio and fashion brand GINA GRNW about ‘starting-up’, giving back and making the most of the materials you have.
We first spotted the work of Gina Grünwald when we ran into @_magda__ at London Fashion Week at the end of September, outside the Fashion East show (photographed here). Her plexiglass bag caught our eye. After further investigation, we discovered the fantastical world of GINA GRNW and her Plex Bags — “the luxury product that’s made out of waste”.
During her first year studying at Central Saint Martins, in the height of the pandemic, Gina launched her social business in the hopes that she could give back to important global causes. The GINA GRNW brand centres around activism, social impact and a zero waste mentality, and supports NGOs with a donation from every sale. As she explains over a voice-note, “Giving back is absolutely normal for me, I grew up like that — It’s our duty to help people who are less fortunate. Really good things can come from that.”
Gina’s new collaboration with young Slavic creatives will launch on ginagrnw.com this spring and is a fundraising auction for Ukraine. All proceeds from a special collection of Plex Bags, inspired by Ukrainian culture, will go to people in Ukraine.
The brand’s first product, the ‘Plex Bag’, eventually led her on a search through recycling bins at a local factory in her hometown of Zurich, Switzerland. Her mission? To turn trash to treasure.
Gina reinvents or up/recycles manufacturing waste by colliding the high tech (3D printing, laser cutting, engraving) with knitting and crochet techniques or in her words, ‘modern craftswomanship’ to give it a second life. Each piece is entirely unique.
Below we discuss more about experimentation, the importance of textile practices to the future generations, and how shopping local benefits everyone.
The concept of zero waste and upcycling is at the core of GINA GRNW — why was it important to you to build this into the brands DNA?
Zero waste, upcycling, recycling, all these very interesting, intriguing techniques of producing, of designing are methods which inspire me immensely. If you ask why I incorporate that into the brand or my design practice, you just have to do it. We are in a climate crisis, in an emergency state, the entire world is suffering.
The fashion industry is a very polluting one but there are so many more industries overproducing too — factories of all different sorts — plastic factories, aluminium factories, metal factories — we have so many recycling factories as well, but recycling is not always the answer.
So a technique like zero waste is really what’s helping to cut down even more waste and to really save energy, save resources.
“Our society needs to learn to cut down and to use less, to impact the earth less and less because we are impacting our environment, our mother earth.”
She’s suffering, animals are suffering, the sea is suffering, so we have to work in new ways, with new technologies — 3D printing, laser cutting, design programs, digital fashion, NFTs — whatever there is to help to cut down on all the resources that we’re using. It’s part of my DNA as an activist, it is what I do, my fashion is activism, that’s not something that I forced — it really is me.
Because I am who I am it was out of the question to not incorporate such a system into my design practice, my brand, my art - whatever I do, it has to circle around this very important matter of change. To start breaking the cycle of harmful doing.
GINA GRNW challenges the destructive world of fast fashion, do you think people are beginning to wake up to how destructive it actually is?
So yes, my brand and my design practice is really targeting that problem — fast fashion, and all the waste, all the slavery, everything that goes into this really harmful way of practicing fashion.
I definitely think people are becoming more aware on the topic of sustainable and slow fashion and so many new brands are evolving around this way of making and producing — in a slow an ethical way. Sometimes the question when it comes to these brands is how serious they really are about it, or is it just greenwashing, because it’s a ‘trend’? It is not a trend, it can’t be a trend. It is the new way and the only way of going forward. We have to be very strict with that, so I am happy to see that people are informing themselves more about what it means to buy a tshirt for £2 at Primark - what are the consequences?
I would say that globalisation and the internet is helping in that regard, because information is travelling way faster than before. We are connected in a democratic way via the internet and social media, so that’s a positive thing. It’s still happening slowly and unfortunately people don’t have the education to understand the tragic problems that we face with fast fashion, but schools and brands who educate the next generation and consumers are playing a vital role.
Shopping so many times a year, buying cheap clothing, using cheap fibres, dyeing with harmful chemicals — all these things have a direct impact on manufacturing countries, but our society actually has an influence on this.
We can’t prevent brands like H&M, Zara, to bring out “conscious collections” or “better fashion” which is 100% greenwashing — there is so much shit going on, I’m like how can you claim this to be conscious and good, fair fashion, it just makes no sense.
“Not every consumer is there with really understanding that mass production is never sustainable. We need to be stricter, we need to hold them accountable.”
That’s the biggest thing we have to understand — It doesn’t matter whether it’s the meat industry, the dairy industry, mass produced fashion — it’s never sustainable. It’s in the local, the smaller, direct-to-consumer brands that can really cut down a lot of CO2 emissions, exploitation of workers and having a smaller impact on our mother earth.
The ‘Plex Bag’ is your hero product — what did the design process look like for this?
The design process was very experimental — we were in the middle of the pandemic and I was stuck in Zurich, Switzerland, finishing my first year of my BA in Fashion Design at CSM — we had a project where we could be free to experiment. We could start a rock band, whatever! I set myself the challenge to start a social business and create a product.
“I found beauty in really pinning down all of my knowledge and all of my feelings, my emotions for fashion and art and material sourcing, and putting that into one product which would need to sell in order for me to create a positive impact, and combine my activism with my creative practice.”
Everything that was going on — BLM, Asian Hate, the Beirut explosion which was an immense tragedy, and having some friends there I really wanted to help. But then also seeing how the planet was regenerating over lockdowns, seeing how the dolphins were coming back, it was such a weird and very hot atmosphere — everything was really bubbling to the surface and exploding and I really wanted to help.
The Plex Bag was created to be smart and versatile — with all it’s little details, the liner bags which you can use in 4 different ways, the shoulder straps, the fact that every piece is unique.
As always, my journey started with sourcing the material - I was able to visit the industrial area in Zurich. I was interested in the concept of zero waste so I was searching for material that I could then manipulate and start creating a product with. I was really hunting for waste.
As it already states in the product name, the Plex Bag is made from plexiglass, which is acrylic glass. A lot of these factories had so many offcuts and waste from their production, just sitting in their recycling bin.
I had to work out how to manipulate this into a bag and was very interested in combining high tech with modern craftwomanship. I’m a knitter, trained in knitwear and very close to textiles, and I wanted to merge this with techniques like laser cutting and 3d printing.
So my design process really started with the material, the hero within the Plex Bag — the offcuts from these factories.
What inspires you, where do you look for inspiration?
One of my core values as a designer is really finding smarter and better solutions with how we tackle waste, with how we tackle recycling. So I would say that my biggest inspiration is always the material - it really starts there in my journey I think.
As I said, I’m a knitter and love making my own textile and creating my own surfaces, instead of cutting a roll of fabric and working with that. By linking pieces of crochet and so on the process really brings me closer to the material. The combination of the technology I use with the technique of my hands, I think that’s the moment that really intrigues me and pushes me further, to find clever solutions for problems of waste.
What was it about the plexiglass that drew you in?
That there are endless possibilities — it comes in different thicknesses, in different colours and also the limitation of what I will find in these factory bins.
“That’s really the biggest challenge — to make it work — so whatever there is, you work with what you have, you can’t just choose the colour. That really drew me in.”
The most interesting thing actually is that because of the pandemic we’ve produced so many acrylic protective glass sheets. They’re wherever we are, at the bank, at the supermarket, at university. The factories have so many off-cuts because they were producing at high capacity because of COVID. One day hopefully it’s sooner rather than later, we will have all these sheets that we don’t use anymore.
With laser technology for example I’ve found a way to reuse them, to repurpose that material already in circulation to create accessories, avant-garde fashion pieces - so many different things are possible. Creating furniture out from it is very interesting to me as well, and here’s a spoiler — i’m already working on designing some pieces, so let’s see. Interior design and furniture production is so so interesting — y’know we’re living with these items day in, day out.
You combine techniques like 3D printing and laser-cutting, with knitting and crocheting — where did you gather these skills? And what is it about the combination that excites you?
All the techniques that I use, all the knowledge as a maker or designer, most of it I taught myself. Especially at CSM you have to be a student that is able to know where to get the information that you need, to make something work. You have to learn the techniques yourself, and it’s really that interest, that unspoiled curiosity that I have to push myself, to teach myself to understand new technology and ways of doing.
I started working at a studio where there were a lot of machines, like 3D printers, laser-cutters, CNC machines and I pushed myself with online tools. Sometimes I was able to ask a question in the studio, but most of the time I was really on my own, really digging into how the machines work. To become an expert at what I do I really have to do endless trials and prototyping.
I love the combination of old and new, that’s the beauty in combining high technology with craftswomanship. We close the gap of generations, we combine different aesthetics as well. So it’s really important we care for all the craftswomanship we have left on our earth, because with these techniques we produce without energy, just with our own hands. We don’t need machines for that.
“In fact it’s actually impossible to do a lot of techniques by machine so we need to rescue their knowledge and make it unforgettable, so the new generation of designers and makers can really preserve it.”
You’ve found a way to merge your activism with fashion — where did the idea for GINA GRNW originate from? When was your ‘light-bulb moment’?
To merge activism with fashion design comes really naturally to me — it is who I am. And as an artist, as a designer, everything you do comes from within. So it’s really important to be 100% yourself, and to do what you feel. So it is what I feel, to merge these worlds.
I knew when I was around 15, I really wanted to do fashion and I wanted to do fashion at CSM, because they have such a cool way of pushing and teaching their students. It’s such a free approach to fashion and art.
GINA GRNW is my newest baby let’s say, and one of the biggest projects that I’ve worked on. When I was in grammar school around 17 or 18 I started a conscious collection of t-shirts, where I designed the prints, the fabrics. I was making the t-shirts myself — I sewed around 200 made to order. I was donating from that project to protect sharks from finning and our oceans from being massively overfished. So, I’ve always done this kind of thing, I just didn’t know what it was called. Now I know that it is a social business, and I merge my activism with fashion design.
So my lightbulb moment I think was quite early, everything I’ve done has been very natural to me, I’ve never pushed myself into anything, it just happens.
My education really helped me to see and made me aware of all these things, these environmental emergencies. It’s what made me become a vegan over 6 years ago. I got really lucky with my teachers and the education system here in Switzerland but then also stories that I read, environmental magazines that I was reading. The animals I was able to see and visit at farms — being so close and having grown up with so much nature around me. Although I’m from the biggest city in Switzerland, the nature is so close to hand, and I have the urge to preserve that natural beauty.
GINA GRNW has studios in London and Zurich — what advice would you give to teams who are currently working across multiple locations? How do you ensure your team is on-board with the brand’s mission?
Suddenly at the beginning of the pandemic I was back in Zurich where I grew up, and I had to make it work. When it comes to creating a team and working as a team it is key that you communicate very well and very clear, and select people that aren’t shy. Ensure that you have a really good feeling with them and that you share the same values.
If you feel the same and want the same for the future in terms of society, politics maybe even and the environment and animal welfare then it’s never a question as to whether everyone’s on the brands mission. To me it’s really a values thing.
“The people I work with have to have the same values in my key topics. Because only then are we on the same page and can achieve what we need to with the brand and with our projects.”
You launched the GINA GRNW e-store in October 2020 — did you make a conscious decision for it to be a direct to consumer business?
I did! It was a really interesting and new experience for me to launch completely digitally. I think a lot of brands, probably because of the pandemic were pushed more professionally into a direct to consumer model. For a young brand it is often the easiest or the most feasible way to bring out new products — to be very quick in how to present and how you market your items.
You’re very free, you’re completely free to do whatever you want. There’s no-one telling you ‘oh we need this in that pattern’, colour, whatever. So with that freedom, I just wanted to experiment to see where it goes.
Sales through instagram are very good. And to have a site, my own e-store is key, even just to present the product to other potential online stores. The margin is also a big thing, as a new brand everything is so expensive for you, and I’m still a student, so often you really can’t afford to give away so much of your end price. Also the fact that I am always donating a percentage of each sale makes it even harder to go into a deal where you have to give away a lot from the end price.
“It’s really good to start out, to make your first baby steps into the business world to understand how everything works — you can go as fast or as slow as you want with this kind of model.”
What gave you the big push to start your brand? What were the first steps you took?
Funnily enough, COVID. I don’t think I would have started so early with thinking in a more branded way of creating because I was only in my first year at uni. Normally you launch your brand when you’ve finished your BA or you start working on it more closely when you start your Masters. So I would say that it’s more unusual to do it during your studies or in your first year.
But, because of COVID the situation was different and it really felt like everyone had to try and do the best they can with more time. The unis were really struggling at the beginning to keep our education standard high enough — because of that I really thought ‘I have to do more on my own, I have to push myself more, in new ways, I have to educate myself more because I’m not receiving enough from university. There’s not enough support’.
We were all in lockdown and distributed across different countries and from April 2020 I was stuck in Switzerland and couldn’t fly back to London. So I was in a different environment where I wasn’t used to creating, so I knew I had to push myself to make my BA a success because the situation was now different.
I had to create another support system. So I had a very concrete idea of creating my brand, and I just started - thinking about the name, the aesthetic, the logo and I just started drawing. Slowly building up what everything could look like and then it’s just doing. Pushing yourself and just having fun. I had a lot of fun and a lot of freedom when I was creating and thinking. It was a playground.
“Creating your own thing, you can do whatever the fuck you want. You’re so free. This gave me back my freedom during lockdown — we were restricted in every sort of way. It set me free in a time where we weren’t free at all.”
Any words of advice for people looking to launch a brand? Anything you wish you knew at the beginning?
Generally starting a new project seems big and un-doable, but just have courage — small steps, baby steps, don’t change who you are, don’t compromise on anything that you really want to do, that you feel. This is you and your vision, never compromise on your vision.
Secondly, once you’ve launched something, after working so hard and you’ve been in such a tunnel with the project, it’s very easy to fall flat and start thinking ‘why is it not getting more traction?’, ‘why is it growing so slowly?’.
One thing my mum told me when I launched the e-store, she said ‘yes Gina, you’ve just planted the seeds. Now you need to care for it, you need to water the plant. It needs time to grow, and when it’s ready you’ll be able to harvest something. But now it’s just the seed, so be patient, keep going, don’t loose your focus, don’t forget why you started this. Keep going but be patient’. That was a big learning I had — you plant the seeds, you need patience and work to keep it alive.
Finally, what can we expect from GINA GRNW in the coming months as well as further into the future?
Oh, there’s definitely lots to come. It is a wild ride. I’m really looking forward to the Summer to push the brands reach, to continue networking and working with wonderful creatives globally. Mixing all our abilities to create beautiful editorials, to create maybe red carpet looks. I would love to do more custom orders. I really enjoy working with music artists. I think there will be some campaign launches, we might have some known e-stores where the brand will maybe be presented — let’s see.
To also see what is possible with the money that the brand raises, to give back. To have wonderful collaborations with charities and NGOs along the way and to work together with them as partners, and to see how you can create change by supporting these very important causes.
I have a million ideas in my head. It all takes a lot of time and often you want to pop from one thing to the next, but sometimes you need to focus on some things a bit more closely and really push their reach. I’m really curious to push boundaries with the materials I work with, and the brand itself. There’s so many more accessories and new knitwear that I will be working on.
I’ll keep you posted and I cannot wait to share all the news and my new adventures with you guys!
To find out more about GINA GRNW you can visit the website or Instagram.
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