WIREDRESISTANCE

Melissa is based in United States.

[wired] is a collection of jewelry, accessories and industrial couture made entirely from reclaimed and surplus industrial materials. These materials—such as alternator wire, rubber, tubing and transistors—are salvaged from recycling centers, donations and the discard piles of local industries. Each piece is individually handmade, and is one of a kind or produced in limited quantities. The color, texture, and malleability of the found materials guide the design of each piece and foster different design challenges than traditional materials.
In this age of mass production and big business, recycling has become an integral part of contemporary life. A positive strategy for counteracting the waste created by industry is to recycle these materials into creative, wearable accessories and fashions that challenge the designer to think outside the box. By partnering with local industries, [wired] reinvents the surplus produced by these businesses that would otherwise end up in a landfill. Every sustainable [wired] piece is an individual work of art, crafted locally and by hand, that its owner can wear for a lifetime, rather than having these materials go to waste in their original state.
[wired] designer Melissa Kolbusz holds a BFA in Industrial Design and has worked in the fields of furniture design, engineering and architecture. [wired], a natural meeting place for art and product design, began from the simple observation that within one square mile of Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood, there were literally tons of perfectly good materials sitting in recycling centers, factory warehouses, and junkyards. More than 10 years later, [wired] has recycled countless pounds of materials from a number of different industries and is carried in 30+ stores across the US, Canada and in the Caribbean.