accessory brand made of recycled billboards and curtains

Buenos Aires – Twelve years ago, Silvina Cannito and Guillermina Balsells founded the Carro brand, an accessories design laboratory with sustainability in mind. From the beginning they worked with unconventional materials used. A year ago they created Renet, a new raw material that is extracted through a recycling process. Having participated in several overseas events, they have just shipped their first overseas order to Los Angeles. There are plans to expand even further internationally.

Brand principles

Silvina Cannito and Guillermina Balsells met while studying in Buenos Aires, where they were both studying fashion design. “We were about to graduate, then we went on a graduation trip with our study program, as part of a thesis for which we had to analyze new trends. From that moment on, we started thinking about building an accessory brand. That was also when technology and equipment emerged. We realized that the things we needed were not available on the market, ”Cannito recalls.

To make the accessories, they chose to work with used materials from the start, and as Cannito explains, they didn’t expect much interest in that at first. The first accessories were made from dismantled men’s clothing. The two young entrepreneurs took part in a design competition in the Argentinian city of Rosario and won a prize for one of their designs. From that moment on, the brand took off. Then they experimented with materials such as billboards, burlap bags, vintage curtains, and embroidered tablecloths.

Renet: Innovation and recycling

About a year ago, the duo became acquainted with the recycling process: “We created a new type of material called“ Renet ”, which is created by heat fusion. In this process, plastic bags used in agriculture in Argentina to store large quantities of grain or soy are combined with woven nets, such as vegetable and fruit nets, or nylon cargo nets, which are used in the construction industry. By combining these two elements, we create a new material that is 100 percent recycled, waterproof, light, sturdy and with a unique pattern, ”Cannito explains.

Accessories for the whole world

At “Carro” the collections are not developed per season. “We work with an available stock of materials, so our collections are determined by the material we have at that moment”.

The products are sold online, through the brand’s website, and orders have already been shipped to customers in Singapore, France and Spain. In addition, Cannito says they have plans to expand and introduce Carro to the United States: “We recently shipped our first formal overseas order to Los Angeles, we had been wanting to do it for three years and then suddenly we had the opportunity.

Aiming to strengthen the brand’s overseas presence, they participated in New York Fashion Week in February 2020 together with Universo Mola, the international organization within the Latin American fashion industry that advocates for greater sustainability and greater awareness. Then, however, the pandemic struck and everything was delayed. However, the growth and expansion plans were maintained.

This article previously appeared on FashionUnited.AR and was subsequently translated and edited into Dutch by Veerle Versteeg.

Images: Carro / official website