London-based designer Inghua Ting and her namesake design company have taken used men’s belts and reworked the leather into twelve or eighteen inch flooring tiles.
The tiles are gorgeous and hard-wearing, and can be used for anything from flooring to bar tops to walls. The salvaged belts are stripped of the metal, cleaned and bonded to a reconstituted leather backing. Each belt is hand picked for the quality of the leather, and each tile is completely unique.
Ting was educated at the Royal College of Art, and initially worked in Japan, developing “innovative, futuristic” fabrics. Her interests then switched to more sustainable issues, which led her to use discarded materials in her designs.
In addition to belts, Ting works with reclaimed seat-belts, leather saddles and a range of different salvaged fabrics.
To make this idea even better, TING takes recycling to a new level: the company will recycle all old products and will even use your old tiles to make new product for you, should you decide you no longer want them.
[Core 77]
Images: TING
