Fairware Project: Aspen Snowmass Environment Foundation

Aspen Snowmass upcycled bag

At Fairware, we love a product with purpose and this project was by far one of our favourites to work on.

Aspen Skiing Company’s Environment Foundation seeked us out to help source a re-usable bag to raise awareness for the Foundation and funds for their projects. We worked with them to see if they might have some ‘waste’ materials we could use to make them from and landed on the idea of using their soon-to-be retired employee ski uniforms.

Using the ski uniforms as our material source for the new bags, we designed both a tote and a messenger style bag. The bags acted as incentives to employees who joined the Foundation and were used to raise money for projects throughout the Roaring Fork Valley in Colorado.Throughout the process, we also ensured that the garments were deconstructed in a way that we could reuse existing logos.

Jessica-sewing-edging Matthew Hamilton, the Executive Director of Aspen Snowmass, found an innovative local manufacturer in Rifle,CO called GarCo Sewing Works to work on this bag project. This social enterprise works to empower and teach women job skills such as sewing, while meeting a local need. They employ single moms who are on welfare and to date have helped 30 women move off of welfare as a result of their work.

These bags are a great example of the many ways Aspen Snowmass is an award winning ski company that ‘walks the talk’.