For many brands, sustainable products are presented as one-offs, limited editions, or separate to the brand’s main output. At RÆBURN, the desire to create items that are more Earth-friendly is at the heart of what it does. Under the styled fundamentals of RÆMADE, RÆDUCED and RÆCYCLED (somewhat tricky to say), Christopher Raeburn and his designers ensure that everything that’s made in his East London studio is made responsibly and with the planet in mind.

Recently, RÆBURN has been repurposing soccer kits, re-making them into tote bags. Soccer is the most popular sport globally. And with that comes a huge amount of waste. Every year, new kits are designed and produced for the countless number of teams worldwide. Fans buy the shirt of their team’s new signing and wear it throughout the season. But when the season ends, those kits will often get chucked. Maybe the player didn’t live up to expectations. Maybe their team failed to perform. Or maybe the club switched to a new design.

KIT:BAG by RÆBURN is a collection of unique bags made from these discarded soccer kits. The kits are deconstructed and remade into functional tote shoppers. The graphic sensibilities of soccer kits are reconstructed to form new shapes and designs. A few letters of Harry Kane’s surname are interrupted by the black webbing handle that features RÆBURN’s wordmark.

With soccer commanding so much meaning in many communities and cultures, the bags are like mini tapestries of the previous season; memories of the wins and the losses; the triumphs and the heartbreaks.

The collection shines a light on the large-scale waste of yet another industry. And although it’s awesome to see how designers like Raeburn can find creative new uses for waste material, we’d like to see less waste made in the first place.

In a mysterious statement the designer said: “There’s nothing for sale, this is a completely transparent concept that we want to develop through the season. At every stage of the journey, we’ll explain more about the process. We’ll be testing, learning and developing and if you want to be part of that journey, please stay tuned.”

From that we gather that these bags won’t be available to purchase just yet. But there are other RÆMADE items to shop on the RÆBURN website, made with surplus military gear and parachutes.