Montreal-based visual artist Gab Bois has teamed up with the leading refurbished tech marketplace Back Market to create a Y2k inspired collection that merges sustainability with creativity.
The collaboration, titled F/W 2005: Hardwear, explores the potential of tech waste in fashion, challenging notion around e-waste, overconsumption and sustainability.
Back Market and Gab Bois are using fashion as a platform to change people’s perceptions of e-waste, showcasing how outdated electronics can be transformed into beautiful, practical artwork. Gab Bois’ collection evokes early-2000s nostalgia while emphasizing the importance of a circular economy. The gallery features cleverly curated objects, such as a knit balaclava crafted from wired Apple headphones and a set of press-on nails adorned with e-waste. Every opulent item was created in Gab Bois’ workshop, and the money raised will support the Right to Repair, a movement dedicated to extending the life of technology by making maintenance a fundamental right and refurbishing easy.
Gab Bois shared similar enthusiasm for the collaboration, saying, “The beauty of the Back Market collaboration was that it was already so clear what the purpose was and the alignment in terms of sustainability and giving a second life to items. It’s a core part of my work, but doing it tangibly – not just a photo series, but something that goes really 360 – is very rare and really amazing.”
Together, they aim to challenge the idea that e-waste is just trash—aiming to give new life to tech by integrating it into fashion.
