Inside Aiayu CEO Maria Glæsel's newly-revamped Copenhagen home

It may sound like an odd thing for the co-owner of a brand to say, but Aiayu’s Maria Glæsel wants you to buy less. “The inescapable truth is that we need to slow down the rate of production and consumption – both for the sake of the planet and for the people who make the things we buy,” says the CEO of the Copenhagen brand, known for its timeless Danish simplicity when it comes to interiors, fashion and accessories.

“To me personally, and to Aiayu, sustainability means striving to buy fewer but better.” This isn’t some knee-jerk greenwashing in the wake of the stark warnings issued by the IPCC’s 2021 Climate Report this August. Glæsel says Aiayu has placed sustainability at its heart ever since the brand was founded in 2007. “It is not something we have tried to retroactively work into our business model along the way.”

Having spent more than a decade at the head of the company, Glæsel was already well aware of the advances in the interior design industry with regards to sustainability – and just how much work is still to be done. But the recent experience of moving house has quite literally brought it home for her.

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“The amount of packing material I have received from product deliveries is astounding,” she says. “Fashion has it a bit easier in this regard, since the products are smaller and are easier to ship in a reusable or low waste way – such as a reusable shipping envelope like Repack that is returned in the mail. But I want to see a no-waste, reusable packaging option in furniture and design – where a chair is shipped in a reusable container that is picked up by the brand to be reused for another product. Or perhaps a reusable flat pack container with a deposit that is returned when a customer mails it back.

“I think it would be amazing to rethink the packaging for interior and furniture brands,” she adds. “It would make a huge difference.”

Taking a tour of Glæsel’s new, Norm Architects-renovated digs, Kim Grenaa, founder of the boutique agency Grenaa Creative and Grenaa Creative Living, wholeheartedly agrees. Admiring items such as Glæsel’s Mater chair crafted from FSC wood and her durable handmade Nepalese rugs, Grenaa notes that “interior products are often very lasting products,” but feels that the industry is missing an opportunity to harness this as a sustainable selling point. “I would like to see more of the big brands add a section to their web shop where you could buy secondhand products. Maybe you’re tired of your chair, but then you could have someone else be happy for it.”

Grenaa – who initiated Copenhagen and Paris Fashion Weeks’ sustainable brand-focused events Meet the Nordics – cites examples in the fashion world such as Filippa K’s Second Life outlet and the Acne Archive store for preloved designer items. “There’s also a very important storytelling aspect for these brands to say, ‘This chair is 10-years-old but it still has value,’” he says. “We haven’t really seen that in interiors, outside of auction houses.”

While the traditionally resource-hungry fashion industry has belatedly begun taking steps toward eco-friendly practices in recent years, both Grenaa and Glæsel feel interior design’s progress still leaves a lot to be desired.

“I find that fashion has moved much faster into this sustainable thinking, but it was about time,” says Grenaa. “Nevertheless, I see two tendencies in interior design. One is the really classic items that you buy and you can even say that you buy it for a grandchild – it’s something that is immediately a lasting product. And then I also see a newer tendency where some interior brands are looking into what materials we use: natural materials, certified wood, or recycled plastic, for example.”

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Glæsel agrees that “recycled materials are a great alternative” but warns against this being seen as the only solution. “It’s very important to remember that the steps in the supply chain turning a raw material to new fabric are very energy-intense and resource-demanding, so you don’t want it to be like a free pass just to buy a lot of products,” she says. “We really have to work on reducing volume.”

While Aiayu minimises the release of new designs and creates items that it bills as “made to last,” Glæsel has attempted to incorporate a similar approach into her recent relocation. “When I was looking for new furniture or design pieces for the house, I actively sought out things which had recycled or upcycled components,” she says, also highlighting a number of handcrafted and vintage items in her new home. Likewise, long-lasting design and natural materials were key. “I really took this to heart in my kitchen since it is one of the most used rooms in my house,” she explains.

“We chose pure oak cabinets by Dinesen, who are known for their use of high-quality wood and craftsmanship, manufactured by Kolon, a Danish company who usually builds interiors for institutions like schools and daycare centres – so you know their work is robust and made to withstand years of use. For our counters, I decided to use a massive, 600 kilo slab of marble stone. It is so huge that it took 15 people to install. We joke that it must last forever since no one will ever want to move it again.”

Glæsel’s new abode may offer a model for more sustainable interiors, but even for someone with her industry contacts and knowledge she admits it has been “an intellectually demanding and time-intensive process to learn about the environmental pros and cons of all these different items.”

Waiting for consumers to do the same en masse is futile, she argues. “I think it is unfair that it falls on consumers to discern whether a product is made in a manner which minimises environmental impacts, or if it is greenwashing. We simply cannot expect people with jobs, families and full lives to sit down and become sustainability experts on everything from food to clothes, phones and furniture. We need more regulation and policy in both the design and fashion industries. Companies themselves will never self-regulate enough to make the dramatic changes we so desperately need.”

Still, Glæsel believes change can be made by a concerted group effort, both within the fashion and design industries and beyond. Glæsel and Grenaa both agree that the collaborative effort is key to this sustainable journey.

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They say that for the first time in history, the two industries have realised that it is something they need to do together within the two sectors – and in between the brands, press and influencers – to change the mind of the consumer.

Overall, she is optimistic about the future trajectory of the design industry, particularly in Denmark and its neighbouring countries. “The Scandinavian design industry has been a leader in terms of optimising longevity and perfecting timeless design,” she says. “This DNA is congruent with sustainability in the most fundamental ways.”

And she is clear that consumers have already helped spur progress. “Sustainability is a much bigger part of the conversation in fashion and design than it was when Aiayu began over 15 years ago, thanks to customers raising their voices for change – but we still have such a long way to go.”