Last may, we packed up The Big Butt and headed to the Van Nelle Factory in Rotterdam. Three days, lots of conversations, and more reactions than we could have hoped for. Here’s what happened.

A seat that stopped people in their tracks

We didn’t want to show up with a fabric on a hanger. We wanted to show what that fabric could become and what it stands for. So we brought The big butt ”De Billenbank”. The shape made people look. The story behind the fabric made them stay.

The response was genuinely overwhelming. Visitors, designers, architects, fellow exhibitors everyone wanted to know more. Not just about the fabric, but about the whole system behind it. How the jeans were collected. How they became fibre, then yarn, then upholstery. How the foam inside is circular too. How every component is designed to come apart again.

That’s exactly the conversation we were hoping to start.

Jeans don’t die. They just change shape.

Our new upholstery fabric Jeans – made from 35% recycled post-consumer denim and 65% rPET – proved that sustainable materials don’t have to look or feel like a compromise. People touched it and were surprised. Clean. Soft. Refined. Nothing like what they expected from a recycled fabric.

And the Digital Product Passport, accessible via QR code on every metre of fabric, sparked real curiosity. Transparency isn’t just a buzzword for us – it’s built in.

What this fair confirmed

We came to Design District to prove that circularity can be visible, tangible and, above all, appealing. Based on the reactions we received, we think we made the point

Thank you to everyone who stopped by, sat down, asked questions and kept the conversation going. And a special thank you to our partners – CircleFoam, Martin Havik of REMOkey, DenimX, Textaafoam, TAPPR and bAwear – without whom none of this would exist.

The system is just getting started.

— Team Fabraa www.fabraa.com