The Eternal Gift
Approaching decay as a means to enhance the personal value – and thus the lifespan – of a corporate gift.
In the Dutch throw-away culture, a meaningful connection between a product and its owner is often hard to find. And yet the connection between people, objects and the earth has never been more important than it is now.
The corporate gifting industry, which is characterized by mass-production and the use of non-sustainable materials, certainly participates in the linear economy and its subsequent throw-away culture. The industry is filled with impersonal products that lack identity, emotion and therefore appreciation by the recipient. As a result, the products are dismissed relatively quickly, although they still contain lots of valuable raw materials. It is time to move away from these wasteful norms and become more aware of the valuable resources that our belongings contain.
The Eternal Gift is a soft resistance against the current gifting industry and puts a magnifying glass on our consuming behavior. It offers a new, modular take on the classic tote bag – a frequently chosen corporate gift that often lacks originality – and proposes a positive approach to the process of decay. While traces of use are often seen as a reason to discard a product, it is used here as a medium to build a stronger connection between the product and its owner. As a result of intensive use a new color will appear, emphasizing the imperfections and giving the bag a unique appearance.
This way, a corporate gift is created that will carry a personal story for each owner as time passes. A gift that the recipient would want to cherish forever. An eternal gift.
Project details
- Year
- 2022
- Programme
- lifestyle-transformation-design
- Practices
- commercial
- Minor
- New Frontiers