Studio Mirte

upholstery and product design

My brains were trained and my willpower was strong enough to go to university, but my intuition told me to go to professional school. So I learned how to work with wood and fabrics, and became an upholsterer. Already as a student I started to use leftover materials as old jeans to use as upholstery fabric. I did this mostly because there was no money for buying expensive fabrics, so I used my creativity and found a big passion in working with recycled materials. In that time in the Netherlands it was not yet common to use recycled materials for creating new products. I guess that without realising it I was part of the pioneers who created a whole upcycle movement.

Directly after finishing school I started my own little company, for the simple reason that I knew that I would not be able to express my creative being if I would work for a boss. I gained a lot of experience to master the creation skills my parents taught me as a child. This made me more conscious of how my hands are able to create anything I can imagine. 

The products I made were a combination of old chairs, couches or small furniture, combined with fabrics made out of leftover materials. All made with a lot of joy, love and passion. Making these products was so fulfilling for me, that I thought that I could do this my whole lifetime (not knowing yet what life had planned for me).

This work made me realise how much we throw away as human beings and how poisoned the consumption society is for our planet. And this brought me to my next project: LU-ST sustainable concept store.