{"id":12355,"date":"2021-11-25T11:26:12","date_gmt":"2021-11-25T11:26:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/kbs-news-events\/?p=12355"},"modified":"2024-07-31T13:01:02","modified_gmt":"2024-07-31T12:01:02","slug":"firehose-fashion-elvis-kresse-isnt-a-business-but-a-crisis-level-solution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/kbs-news-events\/2021\/11\/firehose-fashion-elvis-kresse-isnt-a-business-but-a-crisis-level-solution\/","title":{"rendered":"Kent Business Summit Speaker: ‘Elvis and Kresse is a Crisis-Level Solution’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kresse Wesling, CBE, is a Kent based multi-award-winning environmental entrepreneur and is appearing as a keynote speaker at our upcoming Kent Business Summit<\/a>. After first meeting the London Fire Brigade in 2005, Kresse launched <\/b>Elvis & Kresse,<\/a> which rescues and transforms decommissioned firehose into innovative lifestyle products and returns 50% of profits to the Fire Fighters Charity. Kresse and partner Elvis has worked directly with Kent Business School to deliver workshops that feed into the thread of sustainable innovation that underpins the teachings of the courses we offer.\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

We caught up with Kresse to understand the decisions and motives that influenced the launch of her business and for insight into how students and businesspeople can play their part in giving back to the natural world.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the best ways to access a society is to look at the waste it produces. My great grandparent\u2019s generation in Canada, where I am from, didn\u2019t produce any real waste. They didn\u2019t have bins, they had outhouses for their sewage, it was just a completely different relationship with the natural world.\u00a0 But, in 2004 when I embarked on a journey to uncover the truth about Britain\u2019s waste, you couldn\u2019t Google waste stats. Researching at The British Library I uncovered the horrifying fact that 100 million tonnes of waste was going to landfill that year. There was no way a single person could fix that, but it sparked ideas between my partner Elvis, and myself, we needed to do more to help.<\/span><\/p>\n

I had been to lots of landfill sites and had lists of wastes that were particularly pernicious and shouldn\u2019t be there. A chance meeting with the London Fire Brigade gave me a problem that was within reach to solve. They had 3 tonnes of firehose that go to landfill in a good year, because they are reaching the end of their health and safety life. In a bad year they can have up to 10 tonnes. I couldn\u2019t solve 100 million tonnes of rubbish a year, but perhaps we could find a use for firehose.<\/span><\/p>\n

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I went back to the British library to learn everything I could about firehose. We investigated its constituent components – things like melting points and where else this material might be used. I discovered French luxury fashion houses had been using the same complex polymer materials in a lot of products since the 1960s. I just thought: \u2018Why are they creating a new synthetic material when all this is being discarded every year?\u2019 The idea of firehose luxury goods was born. Elvis was to design (with no background in fashion or art, he used his sheer determination to do so) and I was to run the business.<\/span><\/p>\n

That said, I didn\u2019t see Elvis & Kresse as a business, but as a solution. The capacity to do good was paramount and much more important than trying to mitigate harm. We talk about our rights as humans but so seldom our obligations and that’s the dialogue I think really needs to change. Our cultivation of a solution for the firehose issue became an effective and beautiful design of belts, bags, and other accessories but our model was much more than that. We wanted to challenge the way we manufactured, where we manufactured these goods and what we did with the profits – donating 50 per cent back to charity, using renewable energy and making all our packaging from other rescued materials.<\/span><\/p>\n

We started with a single belt and turnover of just \u00a38,000 in the first year but now produce tens of thousands of products a year, employing 25 staff. Elvis & Kresse have as little as a four per cent returns rate because our customers love our products, what we do and also the services we offer and the respect we give them. To Elvis and I our customers are our partners, they are like solid gold. Even lockdown didn\u2019t hold us back, thanks to our local approach to production, we were able to keep making products by re-choreographing our production and even moving some sewing machines to the homes of our employees.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Aside from the good work we do, our business brings us so much joy. We’ve laser-etched products with ‘Will You Marry Me’ and participated in a lot of weddings, retirement gifts and some amazing bespoke products made for people who have ties to the Fire Brigade \u2013 for instance, a man who brought back a hose their grandfather had used years ago and asked for something to be made from it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

People are always dumbfounded by the business and how we launched it, but it\u2019s not rocket science. To start a business for good, that can really make a tangible difference to climate change, you simply must find a solution to a problem. Start with the problem not the product. Ask yourselves: ‘What large, global problem is there that I think I can help to solve?\u2019 There are so many of them, you won\u2019t be stuck for ideas. With a problem, it\u2019s harder to walk away and you will feel the power of solving it. Use that power to create something exciting and beautiful.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

‘In 2021 to stand out, engage with the big problems’<\/b><\/h3>\n

Here, Kresse offers her starting points to launch a business that really tackles the issues that matter.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n