Good Luck, Humans founder Apol Massebieau tells us how she started the brand from a need to recycle the fabric scraps from her many sewing projects.
I’ve been sewing since I was seven years old. And have been bothered by the amount of fabric waste I would generate from my sewing projects since I was in my 20s.
My fabric scrap stash.
In my 30s and living in Europe, I concentrated on sewing secondhand vintage fabric I sourced from flea markets. Still, there were always leftover fabric scraps. The really small ones were particularly bothersome, as I could never do anything else with them. I saved them in big plastic bags, thinking someday I’d use them for something.
Two of the very first pillows we ever made.
About five years ago, immersed in another one of my sewing experiments, I started making fabric balls that I would fill with pillow stuffing. I used them for such things as eyes for the stuffed toys I would sew. One day, an idea came to me and I started stringing them together with beads. So was born the Lucky Necklace, the very first product of Good Luck, Humans.
I also started making them in different sizes and sewing them together to make Lucky Buttons pillows, our second product.
Lucky Buttons start from this small square of fabric.
Now, three years later, we have developed other products using Lucky Buttons. We make a lot of bags with them, and some clothing.
The fabric we use comes from textile companies and other designers who save their scraps for us. We need only a square of fabric measuring 2.5 square inches to make one Lucky Button. Each one is cut, sewn, and stuffed by hand.
Lucky Buttons stitched together to make a bag.
We usually classify them by color. Then we sew them together into rows and columns to make our bags; or attach them in a more organic fashion to make chairs and pillows. Everything by hand!
Nowadays, we seem to be better known for our line of smocked clothing (another story for another day), but these Lucky Buttons will always have a solid place in our sewing workshop’s story.
Me at a pop-up, in the first year of GLH’s journey.