Thirteen years repurposing discarded items

Paguro is the Latin for hermit crab: nature's original upcycler, always making a home in something another creature left behind. Thirteen years ago, that felt like the right name for what I wanted to build. It still does.

I did not come from fashion. I trained and worked as a qualified accountant and tax advisor. It was a good career, but it was not mine. So I left it and went back to Malaysia, where I was born, looking for something with more meaning.

Growing up in Malaysia meant growing up multicultural and multilingual. Several languages, several cultures, all at one table. Living in the UK and travelling as much as I can has only deepened that. It taught me that the best way to understand a culture is through the things its people make. And across Asia, I grew up around a culture of mending, reusing and making do: nothing wasted, skilled hands turning the discarded into the valuable.

Love at first sight, on a social media post

The moment that shaped Paguro was surprisingly ordinary. I saw someone's post online of a simple bag that looked like leather but was made from tyre rubber. It was clean, considered, and completely refreshing. I had to know who made it.

I tracked the makers down to a small workshop in Indonesia and went to visit. Ayok, founder of the Sapu Upcycle artisan collective in Central Java, had started making bags, accessories and jewellery from discarded inner tubes as an environmental response. He had watched the local tyre and rubber industry burn its waste. Instead of accepting it, he turned that waste into an income for his family while raising awareness of the problem.

Ayok is hugely talented, and he wanted more than a side project. He wanted quality, contemporary products, and to prove to his community that a craft business could be run properly and with real ambition. His family are all skilled craftspeople, each with a role: sewing, hand-cutting jewellery, finishing. At their peak they were a team of fourteen.

That is where Paguro began. Thirteen years on, we still work together every day.

Not a supplier. Not a charity. A design partnership.

People often assume Paguro imports and resells. It has never been that. We design together, adapting traditional craft into pieces that suit modern living and the wider market, so they compete on design, not just on their eco story. I want people to be proud to wear them: jewellery as wearable art, bags that last.

The partnership goes beyond design. Over the years I have shared basic pricing and financial management for their local market. When times are hard, I bridge with interest-free loans and instalments. I still prepay for equipment and workshop repairs. None of this is required: our partners are independent, profit-making businesses who set their own prices. That is exactly the point. It is a win-win, not a handout.

Through Ayok's introductions, we now work with other Indonesian makers including Alive and Loosewood, as well as artisan communities in Kenya, Colombia and the UK.

Thirteen years of resilience

We have done all of this as a micro-business of one or two people, with no outside investment. COVID wiped out the tourism trade many craftspeople relied on. Some makers I worked with in Malaysia and Thailand did not survive it. Our Indonesian partners did, and they have been steadily rebuilding their teams since. Inflation came next. Each time we adjusted, learned and kept going.

Our materials have grown too. Truck inner tubes, still plentiful across South East Asia and South America, remain our leather alternative; the leather-like pattern comes from the tube's original tread, never stamped. Alongside them: motorbike tyres, reclaimed military canvas, bicycle chains, skateboard decks, reclaimed wood from furniture factory offcuts, and now brass and totumo. Every piece is vegan-friendly and fair trade.

What thirteen means to me

Thirteen years is not a story of one founder. It is a story of makers who refused to give up, and customers who chose something with a story behind it. Thank you for carrying our pieces, for sharing them, and for believing that beautiful things can be made from what the world throws away.

Here's to the next chapter.

Yen Goo, Founder, Paguro Upcycle