NEWS
EVENTS
ZABO the sustainable fashion accessory brand
ZABO is a sustainable fashion accessory brand that creates handmade, cruelty-free and eco-friendly goods from reclaimed bicycles or car tyres and inner tubes.
Laura Zabo has used creativity and imagination to craft items out of scraps such as belts, guitar straps, dog collars and leads. Every single item is made out of bicycle and car tyres or inner tubes even the jewellery and skirts.
Nearly 1 billion tyres are wasted every year and they are a massive problem for the environment because they are difficult to break down and are often sent to landfill sites. They are also extremely flammable and can cause tyre fires, with their chemical composition that also leads to toxic substances going into the ground if they are dumped, as well as hazardous fumes going into the air if they are burnt.
Laura Zabo
Instead of polluting the planet with waste Zabo is thinking of innovative ways of repurposing waste material into useful products, but where did this bright idea come from? "I got the inspiration from my life-changing trip in Tanzania" says Laura Zabo. "I witnessed the idea of making sandals out of rubber tyres in a Maasai market."
"I chose to create these fashionable items out of reusable treads because tyres are great substitutes for leather and plastic," Zabo explains further. Not only that but the items are durable, making the accessories hard wearing, perfect for accessories like guitar straps.
Not just content with retrieving tyres from landfills to produce her up-cycled products, Zabo also offers a discount to customers who send back their old items, encouraging them not to bin them. This means waste is minimised as much as possible.
Upcycled inner tube necklace
The future is very much on Laura's mind, looking to make a difference one tyre at a time she explains "I hope to be able to upcycle 100,000 tyres by 2020, so that more sustainable fashion accessories can be created." Having already used over four tonnes of scrap tyres she is well on her way to that target.
Zabo is currently working on getting a London Boutique to sell her wares but in the meantime, you can grab yourself something online.
