Brazilian Melissa Teams Up with Zaha Hadid
by Bonnie Alter, London on 08. 1.08
It's good for your sole: Melissa, the hot Brazilian plastic shoemaker, has done it again. Melissa makes eco-friendly shoes that are 100% recyclable. The production process is fair and sustainable and the "plastic" shoes are made via injection molds, of a special material, melflex, a mono-material which can be dissassembled and recycled. The factory has almost (99%) zero-waste, recycling its factory water and waste, and the employees are well-paid. The company supports many social and environmental programmes in Brazil.
She also teams up with very hip designers such as Vivienne Westwood and the Campana Brothers. And now she has got Zaha Hadid, famous international architect to design a pair of rubber shoes. Hadid is controversial both from a design point of view (love her or hate her) and construction-wise--her swimming pool proposal for the 2012 London Olympics is already 3 times over budget and it hasn't been built yet. As for the shoes--they look great. She says "The fluidity of our design combined perfectly with the technology of Melissa's plastic, injecting pieces without closures or seals." :: Melissa Via :: PFSK
More On Melissa and Zaha
:: Zaha Designs a Hybrid
:: SustainStyle
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Isn't there a slight contradition here? Making eco-friendly shoes in Brazil to sell exclusively in London? Another blog was even encouraging consumers to fly to London to buy them.
I really can't think of many less-friendly products.
And "recyclable" doesn't mean that it exists a process in the country to collect these shoes and recycle them.
Does anyone know what the composition of MELFLEX? I've found a few mentions of it being PVC based, which is hardly environmentally friendly at all.