Sustainability in Focus: Unwanted F.C.
Keith and Kevin Chan can walk into a room and immediately warm it. Especially if you have something to say about football. It’s a unique affectation one can develop coming from Brisbane. In a country where football is still fighting an uphill popularity battle, Brisbane is a city that is sports mad, but The Brisbane Roar fall well behind Rugby Union, League and their transplanted AFL team in terms of numbers. So those that are football obsessed tend to find each other and make fast friends.
Something that may go a long way to explaining why building and seeking out community around both football and sustainability is one of Unwanted FC’s major strengths, and key differentiators. Since the brands inception in 2018 this drive to seek out and build a community of like minded people has taken a small Australian operation to work and collaborate with major international brands, and elite level European players, garnering attention from some of the largest publications surrounding the game.
One of their most notable fans, and someone they now consider a friend is Héctor Bellerín. The former Arsenal right back, Spanish National Team, and Real Betis player. Known on and off the pitch as a style icon (a regularly at fashion week and on the cover of magazines), but also well established as champion for the sustainability, having put his name to several climate change initiatives. A PR agency wouldn’t be able to find a better ambassador to link up with Unwanted FC and yet as Kevin says “it happened completely organically”.
“We had to blink a few times, to check if it was legit”. Bellerín, still at Arsenal at the time, saw a shared post about Unwanted FC and decided to follow and connect with the Aussie upcycling label. Moments passed but the pair stayed in touch via social media. “We’d talk about clothes, He’d send us photos of vintage Nike gear”. Then unprompted, Bellerín reached out again, this time on behalf of some of the other first-team players as well saying; “We’ve got heaps of old and damaged kits can we send you some?”
“A week later we had a DHL parcel from Real Betis, and ended up reworking wash bags for most of the first-team”
An opportunity like that only comes around once in a blue moon if you’re lucky, so they were more than happy to get involved with a short turn around, and “not wanting to be pushy” The twins didn’t even ask the Real Betis star to take any photos. An attitude that paid off when the teams marketing shoot came out, and the players were seen rocking Unwanted FC wash bags, “It was just a crazy experience, and to top it all off he actually spoke publicly about how much he loved the project”. It’s this type of authentic relationship with their most high profile customers that has become something of a calling card for the brand, and an endorsement from Héctor Bellerín, or any number of active Socceroos and Matildas does more than any ad campaign could to validate their work to everyone operating in that space as well as future customers, sending in for made to order product, which makes up about 50% of their business.
Being entrusted with peoples once loved kits and pieces isn’t something the boys take lightly. Each piece is used completely differently depending on the amount of design elements, size and condition of each piece. “Our first thought is always, what is the most impact we can make with that piece? Always trying to look at the bigger picture when starting a project, to maximise the core values of upcycling and circularity which is to make the most use out of an item, with the least waste possible.” This often means looking at a kit and thinking “Instead of making one tote bag out of this, it would work a lot better if we broke it down into four smaller boot or wash bags.”
The ethos of circularity and keeping waste at an absolute minimum is something that Unwanted FC has stuck to rigorously since their inception. They keep all their offcuts to incorporate into the smaller pieces in their collections and work with local supply chains. “We have tailors locally in Australia, and one of our head tailors is actually our Aunty, who still lives locally to our operations in Brisbane” Someone who Keith and Kevin credit enormously with the beginning stages of the brand continuing into the present day, as the pair continue to expand, now outsourcing to factories in Malaysia for larger orders.
Not only does keeping the production local ensure the transparency of supply chain that is so crucial to the brand. It also gives them the ability to work on what are sometimes short delivery times or particular last minute requests from the Matildas camp. Shouting out friend of the Magazine Kyra Cooney-Cross as an example at the Women's World Cup just this year “She just told us that they had lot of extra match prepared kits that weren’t being used and they were in Brisbane for the third place playoff, so we basically dropped everything and managed to turn around a few pieces within the week to get to her before the game”.
Yet another example of how the brand is rooted in pure enjoyment of the beautiful game, and being fans-first. When they’re not working at their 9-5 jobs (Kevin works in e-commerce and Keith in digital marketing), the pair love to travel and never go anywhere without a pair of boots or indoor shoes to jump in on a pick-up game in the cage or at the park, wherever the opportunity may arise. So asking them both about their favourite Unwanted FC piece so far, it's no surprise Keith instantly had an answer.
“I definitely do, being a massive boot nerd and always carrying boots around i think for us the boot-bag has to be the favourite and as our catalyst for starting the brand, it started as just a zip down the middle just for ourselves, and it’s now evolved to something more like a premium wash bag that anyone can tuck under their arm whether it’s Mackenzie Arnold walking into the ground for a world Cup Semi final or its an amateur 5-a-side player like us walking to a ground with no changing room, you can do it in style”.
Kevin adds “it really suited us as consumers, we play so much football whether competitive or social, and boots are sometimes an awkward item to carry, not really fans of the drawstring option that comes with boots, we thought the product made sense for the every-day football consumer”
The pair are super intuitive with their work, a lot of the business based decisions they make come easily, in part because they are so close to their community and their consumer. Even though Keith is based in Germany, half a world and 9 hours away from Kevin, still based in their home town of Brisbane. Having weathered Covid-19 the world is a lot more attuned to remote work, and the pair communicate regularly via video call, to talk over new products, and brand direction; Keith handles a lot of content production, and editing remotely, while Kevin takes care of the majority of orders, and production, essentially creating a kind of round the the clock process that wouldn’t be possible without the distance.
More confident in the brand than ever and increasingly in-tune with their customer, the pair aren’t phased by the steady saturation of football/ football adjacent lifestyle brands and the surge in popularity for influencers or similar labels specialising in up-cycling over the last few years. For Kevin and Keith the prospect of engaging more people, educating them on circularity and sustainable production is exciting, and cite the growing community as a source of inspiration rather than competition. “There’s so much out there, we’ve seen five panel caps, and up-cycled footballs, it's cool to see it continuously evolve, but the main thing we take inspiration from is seeing the community thriving and our personal experiences”.
Another thing Keith highlighted as a growing trend in football is the growth of the women’s game. Something we’ve seen first hand in Australia. Thanks in no small part to last years home World Cup and the spectacular performance of the Matildas at the tournament, as well as the quality of those players in the European domestic competition. “The next generation is becoming more aware and aligned with sustainable projects. I like how women’s football has levelled up this year as well, as a lot of our customer base is female. We've also been starting to see more guys wearing Matildas kits and it’s something we should be super proud of here”.
As for Unwanted FC itself, the pair was limited as to what they could say, whilst in the middle of talks on multiple projects, they dropped hints on different teams that have approached them for commissions, as well as possible forays into the digital realm, one thing for certain is they’re focused on moving more towards longer term partnerships, with brands, clubs, and retailers. Trying to address the problem of wastage at the source and reaching more people with their mission to educate consumers. “We think the future is circular, and we’re super excited to see what the next few years look like both at home and globally.”
- Tags: Football & Culture Interviews
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