Flair Magazine Sustainability is always in vogue and this summer the Egyptian jewelry brand Sandbox by Suhayla Al Sheikh released their most beautiful and sustainable collection yet. The Salt Collection was inspired by the designer’s trip to India, where she witnessed the way the nation was focused on sustainable solutions. India’s push for greater environmental sustainability from recycling programs, reusable straw culture, genuine effort to reduce single-use plastics and other innovative techniques have given India a green makeover. The sustainability practices witness abroad sparked Al Sheikh to incorporate an environmental theme into her art and over the last two years the Salt Collection gradually come to life thanks to a collaboration with Egypt’s most sustainable label Up-Fuse. Flair Magazine sat down with Al Sheikh to discuss the newest Sandbox collection, sustainability and fun collaboration.
What was your inspiration behind creating your newest collection SALT?
This collection has been in the making for about two years now. From the start, the inspiration has been the need to contribute to the environmental issue of plastic pollution through jewelry and allowing customers to engage and be part of this contribution, collectively. This then pushed me to experiment with different ways of incorporating recycled plastic into jewelry, until reaching the right technique and method which fit best. The ocean is also an important part of who I am and I’ve always done my best to protect it wherever I go, hence that was an additional motivation for creating SALT. This specific part of the inspiration allowed me to present the ocean in a way that I felt mimics the beauty and essence of the ocean along with its marine life in the best way possible.
How is the Salt collection different than your other jewelry collections?
My other collections have focused on addressing issues related to human experiences in a way where they have aimed at empowering humans. This collection aims at quite the opposite: at dealing with an issue where humans have been the cause of destruction and therefore attempts to remove the human power inflicted negatively on our environment. From a technical point of view, this is the first collection which introduces an unconventional material into the equation: recycled plastic. All previous collections have been created from sterling silver and natural stones. Nothing out of the box! Thus far, this is a first, and with good reason!
What environmental message do you want to send to your customer base?
SALT aims at presenting a message that mimics the beauty of our oceans and marine life in a way that motivates customers/viewers to pay more attention to the harm inflicted on our environment. Although recycling has become quite the trend recently—which is great—there is still this lingering unspoken belief that it’s “boring” or “uncool”. Therefore, one of the messages SALT attempts to send is that recycling can actually be cool and even fashionable! (Although this initially shouldn’t even matter). The message it aims at sending is that recycling can be done in so many different ways and that sustainability is not only useful for the environment, but also for us as humans. We’ve taken the first step, and shown how it can be done through jewelry.
What new types of materials were included in this collection?
Recycled plastic, with a texture that the mimics the movement of waves.
You collaborated with another local Egyptian company, Up Fuse for the Salt collection. How did you decide to work with them?
Up Fuse is currently Egypt’s most sustainable label, recycling plastics into bags and more. Moreover, their process helps provide many women with stable incomes. For us, their part in this was a given for us from the get-go! For this collection, we felt we had to include Up Fuse as we view them to be Egypt’s leading force in sustainable fashion. We decided to collaborate with them by creating vibrant storage boxes, implemented in Up Fuse’s signature plastic mosaics. We thought this would further fortify the concept behind SALT, increase each client’s contribution to the cause and allow each client to take part in providing stable incomes to 3-4 women—feeds right into SANDBOX’s main pillar of giving back to and empowering humans, giving back to our environment and community with each SALT purchase. In return, each customer gets to preserve their jewel in a cool, beautiful and meaningful box that will always pose as a reminder for the importance and value of their help.
What else do you want to share with Flair readers?
SANDBOX is a purposeful and conceptual jewelry brand. The first jewelry label that aims at fusing deep rooted concepts with mainstream success. At SANDBOX we believe that jewelry is the most intimate art form to the human body, taking on each curve and form. Accordingly, we believe jewelry is not just a lifeless piece of metal and stone. It’s very much alive.
Written by Amy N. Pugsley
