Swedish upcycle brand Rave Review teams up with Škoda on a capsule that turns car scraps into luxury garments
Rave Review and Škoda are the match made in upcycling heaven no one saw coming. The Swedish brand, known for its savvy fabric repurposing, and the Czech auto manufacturer, known for sensible, reliable cars, have teamed up on a capsule collection made, partially, of scrapped car parts.
For Josephine Bergqvist, who co-founded the brand with her design partner Livia Schück, the pairing isn’t as random as it sounds. “My dad and brother are crazy about cars and motor sports, and since I was a child I have heard them discussing cars from different brands,” she says. “My dad used to have car parts all over the house when I grew up.” While Bergqvist wasn’t particularly interested in cars herself, she found herself drawn to the materials and curious about how the bits of metal and sturdy upholstery could be adapted into clothing.
Rave Review x Škoda.
It was Škoda who approached the design duo, offering Rave Review “complete creative freedom” in adapting leftover automobile bits into a limited collection of outdoorsy garments. Schück describes the resulting utilitarian jackets, trousers and accessories as “a merge between the core of Rave Review, which is upcycled tartan blankets and kilts, and car interiors”. A literal interpretation of a belt bag is fashioned from a seatbelt, secured with the familiar closure and decorated with dangling vintage Škoda logos.
Rave Review's co-founders Livia Schück and Josephine Bergqvist.
At the centre of the offering is a leather bomber jacket, crafted entirely from car seats, its neon green lining lifted from the Enyaq Coupé RS iV featured in the capsule’s accompanying campaign. “This piece is really special,” says Schück. Still, working with the sturdy leather, which rebelled against stitching and taking form, was no easy task. “It is always challenging to make clothes out of materials that had another purpose from the beginning,” she adds.
The leather bomber jacket from the Rave Review x Škoda collection.
Available via raffle, which remains open for entry through the end of the year, the collection introduces a new perspective on upcycling. If a car can be clothes, who’s to say what’s next? “What we did together is quite groundbreaking for a car brand,” says Bergqvist. But for Rave Review, turning one thing into something else entirely is nothing new. As Schück puts it: “For us the concept of upcycling is an endless source of inspiration.”