Elderly woman sews bags from abandoned umbrellas

After heavy wind and rainfall, Lil Jaunzems, 92 and from Amsterdam, goes out and collects abandoned umbrellas to make trendy bags out of them. When collecting umbrellas, newspaper Het Parool makes it sound like Jaunzems is out picking unwanted fruit that needs to be janked out of a branch or shell, saving the good bits to be brought home safely as raw material. People apparently look at Jaunzems funny when she’s out, like she doesn’t get that an umbrella is broken, but in true Amsterdam style, Jaunzems couldn’t care less and knows exactly what she’s getting up to.

Many of the bags have symbols of Amsterdam, from Heineken to cannabis and everything in between, so friends and family can ask for specific-looking bags. Before retiring Jaunzems used to sew jackets as a single mom with two children, but now she does this for friends and acquaintances for free and to pass the time.

(Link: www.parool.nl, some rights reserved)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 23rd, 2016 at 6:33 pm and is filed under Fashion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Tags: Amsterdam, recycling, repurposing, sewing, umbrellas