Air Canada seats transformed into backpacks and duffle bags

By transforming discarded Air Canada seats into backpacks and duffle bags, 457 ANEW takes the fight against fast fashion to the sky.

When the fashion design team at 457 ANEW learned that most retired airplane interiors end up in landfills they didn’t get downhearted, they got inspired. With their mandate to make “Want!” from waste, this seemed like a match made at 30,000 feet. 457 ANEW set out to find plane interiors that could still be put to good use.

457 ANEW’s focus is on reusing existing materials because the landfills are full enough and because it beats wasting resources producing virgin materials and they both produce and source locally. This led them to one hundred and fifty-seven seats from an Air Canada Boeing 747 plane with its interior set for refurbishments from which they created a limited edition line of duffle bags and backpacks.

A fair bit of research and development was required before the project was ready to go wheels up. Other materials from up-cycled or recycled sources had to be found and tested. Ultimately, additional materials given a go-around in these bags included discarded seat belt webbing from planes and automobiles and linings made from recycled water bottles. Not all of the 747’s seats could be used and smaller pieces needed to be worked together for the creation of larger bags.

New ways to stitch discarded seat belts had to be perfected, which meant a lot of broken sewing needles before the team found the right tension but each stitch took the 457 ANEW team closer to their goal of net-zero.

With the launch of their stylish limited edition collection of one hundred and fifty-seven duffle bags and backpacks made from the interior of that 747 Air Canada plane, 457 ANEW did more than make something old new again, they took the fight against fast fashion to a whole new flight level.

Please fashion your seatbelts and store your seats in the overhead bin.