Peacebomb

The New York brand created its first collection, Peacebomb, together with a community of Laotian artisans who recycle shells left over from the Vietnam War. Those shells still litter their fields today, with tragic results.

Between 1962 and 1975, Laos became the most heavily bombed country in human history. The United States dropped more than 250 million bombs in secret and without a real military strategy. Most were cluster munitions, designed to cover as much ground as possible and now banned by the international community. Nearly 30% of them have not yet exploded. Every year they kill several hundred children and farmers and injure many more. They are weapons of mass impoverishment: 25% of the farmland is deadly, in a country where 80% of the population lives from subsistence farming.

Thumbing its nose at history, Peacebomb is a beautiful line of jewelry handmade from weapons of mass destruction by the victims of an absurd war. It is a way for them to tell their story to the rest of the world, and perhaps a chance for all of us to make amends, or at least not to forget.