Do not bin it, treasure it! Say the sisters behind Humade

We know that repair is useful, satisfying and fun. We totally see that it can save us money as well as play its part in saving the planet. But could it also be stylish, chic and even fashionable darling? Yes, yes and yes.

Here we catch up with Gieke van Lon and Lotte Dekker, the hugely inspirational sisters behind repair brand Humade, to understand their take on beautiful repair.

The team at Sugru loves your offering of beautiful repair and design. Do you think lockdown has in any way changed people’s views on repair and creativity overall?

Yes, we do. As life turned more indoors, many of us felt comfort in repair and fixing things. I also think that we started to respect imperfection more than before.

The Japanese art of Kintsugi is quite new to many people. When did you discover this and take an interest in it?

It all started in 2009 when we joined the repair manifesto ’Stop recycling, start repairing’ initiated by platform21 in Amsterdam. In our family, we inherited some ceramics, a few of which were broken and in need of repair.

This is how we came across the old ancient art of Kintsugi, meaning gold repair. We absolutely loved the philosophy of embracing the beauty of imperfection and the understanding that the piece will actually become more beautiful for having been broken.  

By repairing with gold, it receives a new personal layer of history. This old technique still exists but is very time consuming and mostly done by real Kintsugi masters. 

In our Kintsugi repair kit, we combine this beautiful ancient tradition with new technology to produce a quick and easy DIY kit for everyone to use. The kit has all the tools you need to create your own Kintsugi repair.

The images of your products and projects are gorgeous. Do you think sharing a pleasing aesthetic of repair helps encourage more people to see the value in fixing things?

In this way, we like to encourage people to look at the world a bit differently. By showing them the beauty of imperfection, we hope next time something breaks, they will not bin it, but treasure it. 

You say that your mission is to find the right balance between man, product and space. It sounds very soothing - can you tell us a bit more about this purpose?

Our mission is to create inventive re-think and re-use sustainable solutions with a story that you want to keep and treasure. By finding the right balance between man, product and space, we want to show that nothing can exist without its opposite. Nobody is perfect, everyone changes, ages, and it is precisely these imperfections that ensure everyone’s unique beauty - the beauty of imperfections. And so by adding flashes of gold to our repairs with something like the Create Me Gold kit is exciting.

What have you used gold iron-on patches for recently that impressed (even) you?

After a lovely night out in Amsterdam, I biked back home through the rain and got stuck in a tram track. A few golden sparks marked this great night and saved my favourite pair of trousers. Why bin it when you can treasure it?