As we navigate the post-COVID world, we seem to be slowly seeing hope of getting our old lives back to normal—as normal as normal can be, at least. Businesses have begun to reopen, companies are slowly gearing up to head back to the offices, and there’s even more opportunities to travel. People now have a bit more liberty to go out of their homes but still with great emphasis on precautionary measures and health protocols. There are some new habits that were formed and altered forever. One of those is the great emphasis on hand sanitization and hand care.
The need to disinfect our hands every so often has made sanitizers in our bags a staple, and while this is helpful and combatting the virus, there arises a need for a soothing product to augment the possibility of drying our hands up due to repeated sanitization. Thus, hand mists and hand moisturizers have both become a need.
And these necessities were at the heart of Aesop’s and RÆBURN’s first-ever product collaboration—the new Adventurer Roll-Up. We had the opportunity to speak with Christopher Raeburn, the founder and lead of RÆBURN and discuss the inspiration and process of the entire collaboration between the two brands.
The roll-ups come in two forms: the Adventurer Roll Up and a limited-edition RÆMADE Adventurer Roll Up, of which only 300 were created. The Adventurer Roll Up is a handcrafted portable pouch made of pre-consumer recycled cotton. Its impeccable design features three purpose-fit pockets to house three of your Aesop hand products. It comes in a sophisticated navy-blue color and offers a convenient way to bring your hand care essentials with you, making it easier to take with you when you’re out-and-about.
The limited-edition RÆMADE Adventurer Roll Up is made from repurposed 1960s aeronautical maps used by the Royal Air Force and consequently Air Forces around the world. This particular choice is aligned with RÆBURN’s ethos of RÆMADE, RÆDUCED, RÆCYCLED. The RÆMADE ethos—in particular—has pioneered the reworking of surplus fabrics and garments to create innovative and functional pieces. Four Roll Ups can be made from just one map, leaving minimal waste, and each resulting Roll Up comes with a unique serial number and certificate.
Emphasis on minimizing impact to the environment and shedding light to the challenges it faces are integral to the collaboration. In fact, these silk relics have been specially chosen for their subject-matter, each detailing a part of the world particularly damaged through environmental degradation, including Borneo and the Aral Sea. “I think there is something quite symbolic about working with a map from the 1960s and reworking it in 2020, because that 40-year period is where we’ve seen the catastrophic acceleration of deforestation environmentally impact climate change,” Christopher shared.
The area of Borneo and the Java Sea is one that is heavily affected by deforestation and Palm Oil plantations while Aral Sea has now dried up and been replaced by desert, with ships standing as tall relics in the middle of what used to be rich waters. Looking at the Aral Sea as you see it on the map in the 1960s, it is significantly larger than what we see from current satellite image images. It’s a stark contrast.
“Ultimately, we’ve chosen these two specific locations because they signify the environmental impact we are having on the planet. But beyond that, maps bind us all together as people, globally,” said Christopher Raeburn.
And the thing that binds people together now is the fact that for most people adventure is quite close to home because of the global pandemic. In fact, the name of the product itself is a playful nod to the fact that in today’s climate, leaving the safe, controlled environment of the home to venture outside can sometimes feel like embarking on a daring adventure. As one would pack a certain number of necessities before heading out into the wild, the Adventurer Roll Up gathers the essentials needed to navigate the urban jungle. At the same time, somewhere in the future when the world starts to open again for travel, the Adventurer Roll Up allows you to have a companion that would help you on your journey.
With Craft, Creativity, and Community as anchors for how RÆBURN works being also present in Aesop as a brand, the alignment and shared principles between the two allowed for a seamless and fruitful partnership. In addition to that, both brands always put people and planet in mind during product development.
And remaining true to this spirit, the open source pattern for the Roll Up will be available online, allowing those inspired by the Adventurer Roll Up to download and construct their own version at home. A ‘How To’ film will be available to guide both seasoned sewers and keen beginners, with both film and pattern available at aesop.com and raeburndesign.co.uk.
“We wanted to bring in the creative element, to democratize craft and allow individuals to make their own version of this product at home… By creating and offering digital pattern releases, we are feeding into these ideas and the accessibility that this can be made by anyone, anywhere in the world,” Christopher shared.
Learning how both brands worked on the project together and how it has evolved to what it is now, it has been a crossover of digital and physical practicality while balancing craft, creativity, and community, and this collaboration has been a stellar display of it all.
Cover Image — Marvin Conanan / Other Images — Aesop
