Gab Bois drops a Y2K-inspired capsule collection that gives back to Right to Repair

Sustainability and creativity go hand in hand. At least Gab Bois thinks so.  

The Montreal-based artist has become an expert in repurposing the old to create something new. From a childhood filled with art and exploration to a career rooted in upcycling discarded materials – orange peels as shoes, headphones as bikinis, croissants as handbags – the 27-year-old has always sought to transform the mundane into the extraordinary. 

As a business Back Market is equally passionate about circularity and giving tech a new life, so what better partner than Gab to create our first capsule collection of wearable art pieces made from upcycled tech, titled F/W 2005: Hardwear.

From earphone headwear to a Discman transformed into a cute compact mirror, this limited release of six bespoke items is available to purchase within the US and France just in time for gifting season. Each piece is designed for the home or your wardrobe, with a nostalgic twist that’s taking a stand for the environment. Think Y2K, but on steroids. 

And if that wasn’t enough, we’re donating the proceeds to a charity we’re truly passionate about – Right to Repair US and EU – who are on a mission to help extend the life of our tech devices by making repair a fundamental right, and refurbishment easier.

Back Market sat down with Gab to discover her vision behind the capsule collection, the challenge with repurposing materials, and how she gets in the creative mood. Read on. 

Let’s take things back to the start. How did you begin your creative practice, and what was the first artwork you created?

I grew up an only child in Montreal, Canada with a lot of time on my hands, and with a very involved and creative father who was self-taught as a hyper-realistic oil painter. So I have a lot to thank him for when it comes to my creative upbringing. And I've always been a very ‘Tumblr teenager;’ in college I had this idea for a photo series. I would see chipped paint on a wall close to my house and started making these parallels, which I shot when I got home and used a free online collage software to put them on top of each other. That was really the first little attempt at what has now become much larger in terms of mediums, props, and set design.

We’d love to get an insight into your art-making. What’s an average day like inside your studio? 

I work in an open space concept. So unless I'm really dialed in, I don't really listen to anything while I work just because I have to be a satellite to the team. I’m supported by a team of five plus me, with everyone having a specific skill set. We do a lot of in-house shoots and sourcing – it’s a lot of moving parts. A daily routine would be kickoff in the morning, then trying to get as many things checked off the to-do list!

Tell us more about the vision behind your capsule collection for Back Market.

The beauty of the Back Market collaboration was that it was already so clear what the purpose was and the alignment in terms of sustainability and giving a second life to items. It's a core part of my work, but doing it tangibly – not just a photo series, but something that goes really 360 – is very rare and really amazing.

"There's this resurgence of retro-futurism in pop culture in general. We keep seeing new Y2K sub-trends coming up to this day, and it's not going anywhere."

What were your influences for this collection? 

I've been working with a lot of discarded tech items in my personal work, but more in a purely aesthetic fashion. So the core of this project was taking the vision we started building with discarded tech pieces and taking it a step further with long-lasting functionality. It was really interesting and fulfilling, to not only make a beautiful thing that can be appreciated by looking at it, but something that's a real product.

What’s the significance of using tech from the early 2000s?

There's this resurgence of retro-futurism in pop culture in general. We keep seeing new Y2K sub-trends coming up to this day, and it's not going anywhere. I just felt like it was fun to use something that's aesthetically pleasing and more obsolete. A lot of the pieces we sourced were just sold for parts because they weren't working anymore. So it made sense to source pieces that weren't a very recent MacBook or something, I feel like that brings a bit more strength to the “second life” idea.

Much of your work has an element of sustainability and material repurpose. Why is this value important to you, and how does it inspire your art-making?

I always love a process where it's completely 360 degrees. For many years, I was working by myself or with one assistant, and when we were working with food items, I love to incorporate the food items in a recipe [to eat] after because it felt like a full circle moment. That's kind of how it feels with most of the subjects in the works. It's just like giving them as many lives and opportunities as possible. So taking a discarded flip phone and then not only like making a really great product out of it, but also getting it shot in beautiful ways and shared online, so you can experience it in different formats.

Why was it important for you to donate the proceeds to the Right to Repair movement? 

I'm a craftswoman myself, I like to make things, troubleshoot, and fix things. We work with a lot of subcontractors that are the same, people who have so much skill in repair and helping us give things new lives. It's definitely an art that’s starting to get lost in tech because of the fast pace of everything and the accessibility to new models. 

Besides buying from the collection, how do you think people at home can reuse their own tech for fashion and aesthetic purposes?

There's so many DIYs it's crazy! A lot of times, I think of something and someone has already, done it. More often than not, there's quite a bit of access to how you can kind of spruce up something tech or not from your house. I was looking at DIY vases recently [on YouTube] and found there’s so much you can do with wine bottles. A lot of it is there – you just have to look for it.