Yesterday, I reported on hip-hop’s Bionic Man, Pharrell Williams, and his partnership with Bionic Yarn, a company that produces fiber made from recycled PET bottles for apparel and housewares. Today, it's PET props to Recycline, a Zurich-based firm that breathes gorgeous second life into these frequently dumped plastic vessels. Recycline’s collection of utilitarian household accessories made from PET bottles -- pencil holders, vases, candlestick holders, and more -- is a fitting example of DIY simplicity doing the aesthetic tango with high design.

 

Some of the items are so basic in execution and form that it seems any ambitious eco-crafter could create them, but thanks to their European origins (I admit, sometimes foreign = fancy), Recycline products have that certain air -- and corresponding price -- of haute design sexiness and sophistication.