Upcycling handmade designer gets support from crowd and finds success on FringeBacker

Handmade designer upcycling seems to be the latest designer trend. First, it was Hermes’ hugely successful travelling caravan exhibition in Hong Kong with over 2,000 one-of-a-kind pieces, made from discarded scraps of exotic leather and luxurious fabric from its atelier, snapped up within a month at astonishingly high prices. Now, Hong Kong’s very own talented upcycling designer of handmade goods, Agnes Nong, successfully achieves her financial support target through FringeBacker for her “Memories Factory”upcycling project. In fact, she has exceeded her financial target on FringeBacker, ....and with some to spare!

Next to come will be Agnes Nong's personal exhibition of her handmade upcycling designs. Watch out for news of this!

As a supporter of handmade designer upcycling, a process of using discarded materials and transforming them into unique, one-of-a-kind pieces, Agnes met with Pascal Mussard, the great-great-great granddaughter of Hermes founder, during Mussard's stay in Hong Kong to talk about what quality means for a designer.  Regardless of it being a hundred-year-old brand or a young designer, the critical factor for coming up with quality work is in the attention to detail.  A designer has to put in love and care, instilling value and quality when making or designing an item, and to ensure that the item is even more valuable 25 years later.

To this, Agnes’ “Memories Factory” has lived up to its values. Her project has now been successfully funded on FringeBacker through great support from the public. Agnes will be preserving memories in two ways -- first, she will design her own special items for her supporters; secondly, she will custom-upcycle and re-design old pieces from other supporters, breathing new life into each of them.

During her project campaign on FringeBacker, Agnes reached out to people in her circle of life, her family, friends, schoolmates and designer colleagues, getting them excited about her project and getting support from them. Agnes has become a hot topic for the press, with widespread media interviews from Tao magazine, Hong Kong Economic Times, Sudden Weekly, Weekend Weekly and U Magazine, to name a few, spiraling her supporters to even higher levels.  We're so delighted that crowdfunding on FringeBacker has given Agnes an all new opportunity to pre-sell her creative work in a way that otherwise was all too difficult for designers. She was able to connect with a vast online community and to showcase her work through FringeBacker.  Traditionally, the public got to meet Agnes only through designers’ marts or exhibitions, and they were no different from any other consumers. But Agnes’project on FringeBacker allowed supporters to participate in her creative process and be a part of it. This vicarious experience has excited the online crowd, giving them a unique experience to not just buy things online, but to be the first to do so for something that has yet to be made and then see it come to life.

Congrats to Agnes and her supporters! Watch this space for updates on her exhibition!