Making Used Sweaters More Valuable: Interview with Ýrúrarí

Translation: Stefán Ingvar Vigfússon

Photo: Sædís Harpa Stefánsdóttir

Ýr Jóhannssdóttir is a textile designer better known as Ýrúrarí. Knitting was Ýr’s favorite hobby for a long time, but since it has become her profession, she says her hobbies are pretty normal. She developed an interest in clothing design at an early age and says that she’s always found strange clothing interesting. “I attended [the high school] MH as a teenager, but before I started there I often went there with my mom, who worked at the school, and I remember watching the people there wearing all sorts of clothes,” says Ýr.

Making something strange out of something normal

Asked what inspires her designs, Ýr says she makes something normal into something strange, but the process varies. “Lately I’ve been getting sweaters from the Red Cross, and what I like to do is to hang up a sweater I’d like to work with and just consider it. Sometimes nothing comes to me, sometimes something does. But most of the time, the inspiration comes from the sweaters themselves. If there’s a hole in the sweater or a stain that won’t come out, I have to work around that. That also drives the process. Now I’m working on an experiment for Design March, which will actually take place in May this year. I got a writer friend of mine to write a short story about a sweater, for instance. Then I’m going to create the sweater based on the story. I’m very excited to see how that turns out. It could be an interesting approach to fixing these sweaters, imagining stories,” says Ýr, adding that it could also give them added value.

Photo: Gunnlöð Jóna Rúnarsdóttir

From a black trash bag to a Los Angeles stage

One of the first sweaters Ýr got from the Red Cross was from Zara. It was rather stained, and Ýr decorated it a lot. A musician later gave a concert at a festival in Los Angeles and wore Ýr’s sweater. “It’s amazing to see a sweater that was on its way to the dump or a landfill somewhere get a second lease on life and make them more valuable. They had a story before I got them that I know nothing about, but I prolonged their lives and made them into something special,” she says.

“At its core, it's a much better solution than constantly making new sweaters from scratch. My design has sort of evolved from that. It’s also evolved into the project Jumpers with Everything (Peysur með öllu), where I get sweaters from the Red Cross that were going to be thrown away. My design is always evolving to become more eco-friendly,” says Ýr, adding that by studying design and learning about the clothing industry, it became clear to her that the industry is dysfunctional.

Still, she looks positively at the way the fashion industry is evolving and thinks more and more individuals are paying attention to the issue and trying to find more eco-friendly means of production. “Upcycling has been going on in Iceland for a while. People are trying to find out more and more about how the clothes they’re buying were made and where they come from,” says Ýr.

Appeasing guilt is not enough 

Ýr says that the most foundational change that’s taken place is that there’s a shift toward more education on the subject, especially among young people. She doesn’t remember getting any such education when she was in elementary school. “Then the kids go home and educate their parents, and the message spreads even further,” she says.

“Buying used clothes has to be the norm,” says Ýr, adding that it is important that people be aware of their consumption habits. “So many people take their clothes to the Red Cross or sell them at Extraloppan to make space and money for new clothes. That’s something that people have to understand. It’s not enough to appease your guilt by taking your clothes to these secondhand shops but then not shopping there yourself. There’s nothing circular about that. I’ve also been trying to point that out to people. Also to use their clothes as long as possible. That's the most environmentally friendly way, and that’s what I’m working with. Sometimes you have clothes, for instance a sweater that you’re just tired of, frankly, and then the thing to do is to turn it into something you want to wear. That’s also important,” she says.

Photo: Gunnlöð Jóna Rúnarsdóttir

How to make sweaters into treasure, not trash

Currently, two of Ýr’s sweaters are on display at the Reykjavík Art Museum. Fifteen emerging artists were commissioned to show their work alongside works by Erró. Ýr says it was very fun to be asked to take part in the project.

“I also have an open studio at the Museum of Design and Applied Art and will be doing that until Design March kicks off in May. People can try out different approaches I’ve been using and repair their clothes. It’s incredibly fun. Down in the lobby of the museum I have a rack with Red Cross sweaters that I haven’t fixed yet. I get so many that people can come, follow a certain set of rules, and take them home, with the promise that they will use them, repair them, and maintain them. I’m really just trying all kinds of approaches to increase the value of these sweaters so they don’t just become trash. But sometimes I fear they’ll be used very little if at all and wind up in the same place they started before too long,” says Ýr.

Photo: Gunnlöð Jóna Rúnarsdóttir

Sauce spillage

Asked about the origins of Jumpers with Everything, Ýr says that the Red Cross contacted her. “I had been working with secondhand sweaters and the people at the Red Cross said they often get sweaters with slight blemishes.”

In recent years, the Red Cross has collaborated with Design March. Through the collaboration, Ýr got a lot of sweaters and later displayed the resulting creations at a Red Cross store. “The people sorting the donations told me they often got sweaters with spills on them, like someone had dripped sauce on themselves, and that’s where the name comes from. From some sort of sauce spillage. The first sweater I decorated had a stain like that. I embroidered over the stain, and that’s where the theme came from. Now the project is called Jumper with Everything for Everyone, and I’m trying to do it in such a way that everyone can take part,” says Ýr.

In closing, the Student Paper asked Ýr what she puts on her hot dog. Ýr is a vegetarian, which she says complicated the aforementioned project, Jumper with Everything, as she and all but one of the models were vegetarians. “But if I’m having a vegetarian hot dog, I’ll have it with ketchup, fried onions, and mustard,” says Ýr.