In her latest collection, local designer Ruby Urquhart continues to illustrate how waste products can be transformed into beautiful, useful things, instead of going straight to landfill. 

No New Material Needed (NNMN) is a collection of puffer jackets made from salvaged and second-hand products: the majority of the materials come from tents discarded after Rhythm and Alps music festival. 

Ruby has combined materials from tents and decommissioned parachutes with second-hand cotton lining to create the new collection, which will launch at Wānaka store 56Rocket next weekend.

Ruby salvaged abandoned tents from Rhythm and Alps and combined them with materials from decommissioned parachutes and second-hand cotton to create the jackets.

“Now the tents have become loud, fun and cosy jackets,” Ruby said, “but I can't help but think about the other 10 skips full that got thrown out the years that I was collecting them.”

Ruby, who grew up in Wānaka and is currently based in Christchurch, studied art at The Learning Collection and was a painter before starting her business Broken.  

The second collection from the 27-year old’s emerging brand continues to build on its founding ethos - that no new material is needed because so much that already exists is thrown out every day.

“As it goes with most of the materials I collect, it took time for a good use for the tents to reveal itself,” Ruby said.

Ruby collected the tents for two consecutive years before the idea to create puffer jackets with them came to her. Then came the long process of finding complementary materials and the intricate work of creating the garments.

The collection will launch at 56Rocket in Wānaka on July 23 before select pieces are sent to Wellington to feature at boutique store The Service Depot.

The final collection features a mix of unique ‘one off’ jackets as well as some simpler styles which will be available in a range of sizes.

Ruby is proud of the end result, in which 98 percent of the materials are salvaged: “The only new component is the zip.” 

Still, she says she’d rather the tents had been taken home and reused by their owners: “The best use for a tent is as a tent."

Ruby’s first collection under Broken transformed bike tyres’ inner tubes into handbags and NNMN, similarly, gives new life to waste.

They both build on Broken’s overarching goal: “We are aiming to reduce the demand for new materials being produced by reusing materials that would otherwise go into landfills,” Ruby said.

Collections like this, Ruby hopes, will help connect people to the life cycle of the things they buy, own and discard.

Broken’s latest collection, No New Material Needed, will launch at 56Rocket at 18 Dunmore Street on July 23 with opening drinks and nibbles from 6pm-8pm.  

The collection will remain in-store until July 25 before select pieces are sent to Wellington to be featured at boutique The Service Depot. 

PHOTOS: Ruby Urquhart