Starting small: Experimenting with biodegradable Design
In the last entry, I mentioned that I would share which product I chose to begin this journey with- and why. The answer is, in a way, quite unremarkable: a pair of simple house slippers.
Not exactly the kind of product you might expect when setting out to rethink materials and sustainability. And yet, for me, it felt like the most natural place to start.
Part of that decision was deeply personal. I grew up in Germany, where house slippers are almost a quiet cultural constant. You take your shoes off at the door, you step into something softer, something that belongs to the home. It’s a small ritual, but one that carries a sense of comfort and care. Having lived most of my life in Germany and England, neither exactly known for forgiving winters, that ritual also becomes practical. Cold floors, older buildings, no underfloor heating, slippers aren’t just a nice-to-have, they’re essential. They’re what keep your feet warm through long winters, the moment you leave your warm bed in the morning.
However, most options on the market seemed to fall into two extremes. On one end, inexpensive versions made largely from synthetic materials, often plastic-based, not designed to last and certainly not designed to return to the earth. On the other hand, high-end versions made from leather or shearling- something that I try to avoid from an animal-cruelty perspective.
Somewhere in that gap, the idea for this first product started to take shape. It wasn’t about reinventing the slipper, but about rethinking how it could be made.
Coming from the startup world, I’ve always been drawn to the idea of MVPs, minimum viable products, as a way to test a concept in its simplest form. The slipper became exactly that, a kind of testing ground to experiment with biodegradable design in a tangible, contained way.
Looking back, it makes sense that this is where the journey began. Not with a grand statement, but with something small, familiar, and quietly embedded in everyday life. I cannot wait to show you where we’ve got with this!