Focus Firehose: Landfill to Luxury

At Earth Cubs we are really passionate about celebrating all the wonderful things about the world.

This includes the people behind the breakthroughs; brilliant minds and passionate hearts.

We love shouting about those who put their energy into creating positive change. That’s why we want to tell you an inspirational story about firehose. Not just any one firehose, in fact, but metres and metres of the stuff, and how, thanks to one man and one woman (Elvis and Kresse), all this beautiful, historic firehose was saved from the scrapheap and instead made into luxury bags and belts.

Once upon a time, back in 2004, when google couldn’t just give you absolutely all the answers you wanted about everything, Kresse discovered by visiting the British library that 100 million tonnes of waste was going to landfill each year, in the UK. Kresse was fairly horrified by this figure but was also a very curious and visionary kind of person, so visited some waste sites to get a closer look.

“I expected to see plenty of household rubbish, of course, but didn’t expect all the industrial waste," she told our Earth Cubs info-sniffer, Lucy." There were tonnes of clean material with obvious value (perhaps not to the person who is disposing of it, but potentially to others)."

Such waste included lots of really beautiful firehose, so Kresse called a meeting with the Fire Brigade who explained that they de-commissioned up to ten tonnes of firehose each year just because it was too old or had one hole!

What did Kresse do? She started bringing the firehose home, with no idea what might come next and to some confusion from her flatmates. She and her partner, Elvis, began teaching themselves about the raw material and then in 2005 Elvis made one bag, and Kresse took it all around London and convinced 200 people to buy it even though they wouldn’t get their own version for six months!

Now, 15 years on Elvis & Kresse sell firehose bags, belts and wallets, and also host workshops out of their Headquarters in Kent. Most amazingly, 50% of all profits go to the Firefighters Charity. Somehow they've made it work and continue to run a successful business.

So what’s their secret? Lucy asked Kresse.

Passion, and integrity, Kresse answered: “Most people who go into fashion love fashion, or who go into luxury, love luxury. But we came into it because we love the firehose, and we thought the industry was structurally unsound! Then we built a business around solving the firehose problem and challenging the industry. Now we have a partnership with the Burberry foundation and we rescue their leather – a lot of people would classify us as almost mainstream!”

During Covid-19, Elvis & Kresse sales have gone up by 30%. They’ve also been doing a lot of repairs and bespoke work too.

“Of course there is likely to be some kind of recession but we refuse to be pessimistic (even in pessimistic times) and will still seek solutions,” says Kresse." We are doing huge research and development projects around ubiquitous pernicious wastes and developing a lot of circular designs. We’re also very transparent because I’m proud of everything we do, including our mistakes; we are on a journey and working really hard at being better.”

We need to help our young people be curious not just about how the world works but also how it fails.

Kresse’s top piece of advice to any young eco-conscious entrepreneur is, more than anything, to cultivate and respect curiosity. This needs to be facilitated for children, too, mostly by teachers and parents.

“We need to help our young people be curious not just about how the world works but also how it fails,” she says. “There is so much failure right now, and yet within it there are solutions. All we need is for people to be given the opportunity to find what they think they can fix, and apply themselves to it. Everybody deserves a chance to follow their passion and find their firehose.”