Upcycling at the NYIGF (and Hipcycle product preview!)

Earlier this week I went to the New York International Gift Fair at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York City. It wasn’t as large as some of the largest shows I’ve attended when I was in other industries, but it was a pretty huge none-the-less. The show was broken up into subsections by specialty, and I went specifically to check out the “Handmade Designer Maker” and “Handmade Global Design” sections.

I came back with all kinds of ideas for items to showcase on Hipcycle, and I also had a chance to meet some of the great folks that I already know will be on the site. These guys have beautiful, practical, affordable products, and I wanted you to meet them here in the blog (plus get a small preview of what’s in store when we go live on October 1…how exciting!)

The good people at Vinylux and Resource Revival were sharing a booth, and were showing off new products as well as featuring their most popular items. On the left side of the booth was Vinylux from Philadelphia, which makes bowls, frames, mirrors, clocks, and lots of other stuff from old vinyl LP records. Jeff Davis, the founder of Vinylux, is a super-nice guy and very passionate about the business he has built. On the right of the booth was

Resource Revival from up on the Columbia River in Oregon. RR makes a similar line of products from a completely different source material: old bicycle parts. Kolin Leishman from their sales team is new to RR, but you could tell that he was totally stoked to be working for such a cool company. What was especially great about Vinylux and Resource Revival is that they both have developed programs to broadly and efficiently collect their source materials, lowering their costs while also educating about the importance of waste diversion.

Bryan Parks was at the show representing his company Kwytza Chopstick Art. Bryan started Kwytza after spending a few years in China and becoming aware of the millions of single-use chopsticks that are manufactured and disposed of each year. He uses these chopsticks to make all kinds of really cool collapsible baskets, trivets, and even lamps. Really amazing stuff…nice job Bryan!

The husband and wife team of Severine Zaslavski and Oscar Wientjes set up shop for their Green Glass Company, which is based in Wisconsin. You can tell that these folks bleed green! They use every part of bottles to make all kinds of glass products, and their packaging is creative, effective, and eco-friendly. They have a new product they were featuring, which are drinking glasses made from Perrier bottles. These glasses have an elegant curve to their design, and are sturdy enough to use every day.

The upcycling industry is awesome, and is full of a ton of creative, passionate people making incredibly worthy products. Hope you enjoyed this quick preview.