Sustainability and Reuse: Not a New Concept

The constant emphasis placed on reuse and sustainability seem commonsense to me. After spending a weekend cleaning out and exploring a recently deceased relative’s house, full of beautifully aged products that were well used and loved, reuse is not a question to me but a celebrated practice. Passing down objects that last, not as a point of trend or following a fashionable idea, makes sense economically, but also sentimentally. I know that my daughters will be using their great-grandmother’s silver and furniture with her in mind for years to come.

Sustainability or the ability to last for a long time is not a guaranteed term for a majority of today’s products. Constantly we buy and repurchase items, and all of a sudden, it is a novel idea to invest in objects that promise a longer lifetime? Today’s ethos is compromised by the way that invasive marketing programs viewers to constantly get the newest version, especially when their product begins to show the appearance of wear and tear.

See: www.apple.com

As consumers, we are meant to make it appear as though we don’t use what we have invested in and the second that the item shows its age; it is discarded. I am thinking of leather bags, the upholstery on couches or when your broken-in pair of jeans becomes “too broken-in,” thus “mom jeans.” However, some things get better with age, even with an age-adverse society.


At Scofield, our products gain beauty over the years as the casein ages on the wood turnings and the finishes absorb to sink deeper into the surface, embracing the raw materiality of the tin or copper. It seems that people who spend their time with historical products and antiques must to teach their customers to rewire their thinking and understanding of the world around them. For some reason, ever since Fordism and assembly line mentality kicked in, sterility and predictability also became difficult to counter, causing people to see the diversity of finished or charm of the slightly mismatched to be an aberration or pejorative factor. Instead, I argue, these human touches imprinted on the objects have both sustainable and sentimental attributes that outlast daily use.

(Ford assembly line, 1913)

Above VERSUS Below

(Detail of a Scofield Chandelier)