By Cassell Ferere originally published on Forbes.com

“One of the greatest inventions of man is bottled water,” states Virgil Abloh, Creative Advisor of Sustainable Innovation Design for Evian since 2018, over a conference call. “It’s an ultra profound concept. You can unravel a simple object and tell the story of humanity.” Humanity is the essence behind the Evian collaboration and Abloh's design aesthetic. Abloh insists on designing with an acute sense of detail while provoking thoughts around humanity that are practical as well as figurative. 

Evian is on another run of ethical designs for water bottles, launching the first-ever label-free bottle in France in early 2020, and previously fabricating a glass bottle design by Abloh which was launched alongside the Activate Movement initiative. Virgil and Evian offered a grant of 50,000 euros for sustainably-focused design innovation projects for participants 18-35 years old.

Now, to be released in America is a new 100% recycled material container. Abloh says, “I look at it as a sculpture. A 2.0 intervention onto an already compelling object with a compelling context - water being bottled.”

Water has come a long way, from scraping rivers with tin cups and now bottling water for transport. Evian and Abloh ’s idea of reworking the consumable water bottle, in this case, is also a necessity.  

Modernity is in Abloh's DNA, seeking to provoke thought that leads to circularity and reinvention. Like his idol, Marcel Duchamp, who famously made art out of existing objects, Abloh creates in the vein of evoking the same conundrums. If it exists, then it should be utilized. Whether a piece of art to provoke thought, or a practical object, like a water bottle, it can be made, and re-made, and exists as new. 

Evian and Abloh have created a 100% recycled plastic water bottle [from rPET]. Archived bottles are methodically designed and re-created from the recyclable polyethylene terephthalate. The hammered effect on the bottle signals a previous life of the container. The indents are a re-fashion of the original Evian bottle. 

The collaboration was developed over a rigorous period - about 2 to 3 years of conceptualizing with Evian - at Abloh’s Black-led design firm, Alaska Alaska, based in London. Abloh envisioned his agency as one that “lends creativity to all realms.” He continues, “what you see is very much from hand-molding to conceptualizing, to rendering, to prototype, to ultimately what you see as the final product.” 

Beyond art, fashion, beauty, and music, for Abloh, the Evian collaboration is purely industrial. The Architecture graduate defines it as a “sensibility of modern design that can be applied to everything.” Abloh indicates that “we have enough information to understand how we as humans affect our earth.” Design is “only being responsible if we take into account new information,” he expresses.

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