Converse Opens Creative And Sustainable Workshop in Melbourne

Converse has teamed up with brand experience agency, Amplify, to launch ‘Renew Labs Fitzroy’, an experimental retail experience that showcases creativity, co-creation, and promotes sustainable shoe consumption and usage.

This centre is located in Melbourne’s Fitzroy suburb, and will host intimate creative workshops, in which consumers will be encouraged to customise their ‘Chucks’ with patches, embroidery and eco-friendly dyes.

The centre also utilises locally sourced upcycled, recycled, and repurposed materials, and offers opportunities for shoe refreshing with cleaning, repair, and renew services.

Renew Labs is centred around the Converse Renew product range, a business model which aims to extend the iconic shoe’s lifespan, building on the brand’s circular design principle, ‘each shoe leads the next in reducing its impact on the planet’.

Converse’s global creative community, Converse All Stars, will also drive progress through grassroots initiatives, as well as playing an ongoing role in the Renew Labs’ journey, as the brand continues to test and create positive change.

Renew Labs will act as a designated collection point for any pre-loved sports shoes that cannot be renewed, instead being recycled into products like gym flooring via national recycling initiative, TreadLightly.

Collingwood based artist, Tamara Leacock, hosted the first Renew Lab workshop. Her brand, Remuse Designs, sits at the intersection between futurism and nature, with Leacock channelling this to mentor others on methods of working low-impact dye techniques and other environmentally friendly customisation practices.

Amplify’s creative director, Tim Baggott, said, “It has been a privilege to bring the world’s first permanent Renew Labs retail space to life with Converse.

“The store is built around the statement, “There is always a way to renew what we do”, an idea that resonates strongly with Amplify’s own sustainability efforts and is designed to be a perpetual work in progress, a space to be reconsidered, reworked and reimagined over time.

“We are excited and grateful to have the opportunity to continue this incredible journey with the team at Converse.

Renew Labs Fitzroy is now open.

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