This wedding dress was made from 15 discarded umbrellas (Ailsa Chang/WNYC)
The city will be seeing rain for at least a couple more days this week, and chances are, a lot of you out there will be caught on a street corner -- soaking -- desperate to buy the first cheap umbrella you can find. And chances are, that cheap umbrella is going to break under the first big gust of wind and find its way into a trash can. But that little umbrella's life may not end in the waste basket where you left it.
"The vast majority of these cheap umbrellas end up in landfills," says Eric Goldstein, an environmentalist with the National Resources Defense Council. "We pay taxes to export our waste, most of it to Pennsylvania, Virginia, Ohio, South Carolina."
Goldstein has a message to this pedestrian-heavy city, so reliant on the last-minute, single-use umbrella: you get what you pay for, so buy durable umbrellas that won't litter our streets and gutters after one rain storm.
He estimates hundreds of thousands of umbrellas make their way into landfills every year.
But there are a few hundred umbrellas each year that end up somewhere else -- right under Catherine Charlot's sewing machine. She's got a small fashion studio, called Himane, near the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn.
The first thing Charlot notices is not your new outfit, your expensive handbag or your cute haircut, she'll be checking out your umbrella.
She's spent eight years scouring the streets of New York for discarded umbrellas.
"Any umbrella, any one," says Charlot. "I don't care about color. I have a ton of blacks, of course, because you find more blacks on the streets than anything."
She goes out with a shopping cart and scissors, stripping away the slippery, light pieces of fabric from their metal skeletons -- and then transforming them into waterproof tote bags, wallets, outfits for dogs, little black cocktail dresses, and even wedding dresses. She slips one bridal gown onto a mannequin -- a little poof skirt number made out of 15 white umbrellas.
"I wanted something really chic, nice," says Charlot. "It's three layers -- you have the umbrellas, you have the knit, and you have 100 percent cotton underneath. And I got this beautiful strapless dress."
After one huge rainstorm in March, Charlot collected 237 umbrellas on the streets of Brooklyn in a single week. To store her rainy day stash, she has a separate room down the hall from her studio.
"All of them are umbrellas that people sent me, that I collected, all those bags in here," says Charlot. "Total, the last time I counted a couple weeks ago, it was 457."
Charlot's a native Haitian who's appalled by what New Yorkers throw away. She can turn nearly anything into fashion accessories -- yoga mats become homemade laptop bags. Sports bar wrappers accent tote bags. Chopsticks help structure purses and outfits. Her dresses sell from $100-$500 in local shops, and tote bags are about $40.
"The whole purpose is that you are taking something that was something else and you turn it into a new life," says Charlot. "You are giving that item a second life."
As I left her studio, she grabbed my umbrella -- a bright yellow, full-length one that opens to reveal a sunflower. She carefully stroked the fabric, and says, "You know where to find me, when this breaks."
To donate your busted umbrella, e-mail:
info@himane.com or call 347-469-1721
Ailsa Chang is an award-winning journalist who covers criminal justice, terrorism and the courts for WNYC. She found her way into public radio after practicing law for five years, and can definitely say that walking the streets of New York City with a microphone is a lot more fun than being holed up in the office writing letters to opposing counsel.
Comments [16]
Thank you for writing about this. Recycling is really important so we'd be able to conserve our natural resources. Something else that you might find interesting is this video I saw on the GreenopolisTV YouTube channel. It's a new video about a "fling" or recyclable plastic trash bin. Check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKzHRK6n-S8.
Great story, especially for a rainy day.
been there, done that...
http://fiftyrx3.blogspot.com/
http://www.danyelle.org/fiftyrx3.html
i was inspired by tiffany tomato's umbrella skirt...
http://tiffanytomato.com/pages/makeit/umskirt.htm
but wanted to make something that people could not identify as made from umbrellas.
treehugger was "inspired" by the dress and partnered with I.D. magazine on a competition to design a better umbrella...
obviously many umbrellas are still breaking!! Glad to see someone is still reusing them (go Catherine!!). I often thought about making sculptures out of the left over skeletons I had. Years later I discovered the work of Janet Nolan...
http://nolongerempty.org/exhibitions/L2%204%20EBway.html
Artist Jean Shin has also used recycled umbrellas...
http://www.jeanshin.com/umbrellas_stripped_bare.htm
It seems there is no shortage of ingenuity on recycling umbrellas, now we just need ingenuity in making them last longer.
I own an Himane umbrella bag-it's awesome for rainy days and it is so well lined! I can't wait for her new collection to come out! www.himane.com
Catherine Charlot is ingenious, creative, talented and a savvy environmentalist encapsulated!
I am so proud of her inventive and imaginative sense... I am delighted to learn about her accomplishments!
Could you please let us know where to reach her and how to reach her by email or phone or her website?
I hereby pronounce her New York City Commissioner for Recycling!
Thank you Ms. Alisa Chang and WNYC for bringing wonderful citizen of our great city to the world's attention! Catherine Charlotte got diamond out stone!
A very refreshing story!
What a fun story... keep up the good work!
Can you post Charlotte's info on your website so we know where to send our broken umbrellas and other reusable textiles?
I would love to see more of Charlot's creations. Where are they sold? Can we visit her workshop?
Forget using an umbrella and reduce the magnitude of solid waste disposal. People should use their favorite baseball cap and a durable foulweather jacket or raincoat. The jacket/coat keeps you warm and dry; the cap's visor keeps the rain out of you eyes. And you have both hands to carry things!
Good story for a rainy day. Alisa Chang might want to follow up with New York artist Janet Nolan who has been working with discarded umbrellas and other normally discarded objects for over 30 years. http://www.janetnolanart.com/i_a.html
Thanks!
I enjoyed this story. What Ms. Charlot is doing is great; I wonder if there's a way to expand her business model so more fabric & other materials could be diverted from the waste stream (& I hope she recycles the metal parts of the umbrellas!).
I'd also like to hear WNYC report on the other end of the story--sort of a follow-up in reverse. Where do those cheap umbrellas come from? What are the working conditions of the people who make them? Do they make a decent wage? How far are they shipped? How much carbon dioxide is produced by manufacturing them & shipping them to the US? The environmental concerns aren't just about keeping them out of landfills.
These creations are sheer genius. Good for Catherine to collect all those unwanted umbrellas and use her head and hands! Great story.
She's original and was on to the concept of going green long before Al Gore... her other non umbrella designs are worth note also!
I know Catherine and her work well, and I hope more people will bear witness to her talents as a designer who can turn trash into gorgeous clothes and accessories. Hooray for HIMANE! She deserves more good press like this.
Thank you Ailsa for this exquisite coverage and for coming to my studio.
Even the site is being updated but anyone can still view some of my designs and can contact me from there as well. www.himane.com.
Thank you
Please let me know where I can send Charlotte my umbrella and where I can view her products. They are amazing. I wish more people were as inventive and less wasteful.
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