Fashion Reimagined: Your Old Flip Phone Is Now A $500 Luxury Belt

Canadian artist Gab Bois and Back Market's new collection taps into tech nostalgia and highlights the fashion potential of a circular economy. Also: iFixit teams with Microsoft for Xbox repairs.

That old flip phone gathering dust in your basement junk drawer? Ever thought of turning it into a $500 luxury belt?

That’s the idea behind a new collaboration between Back Market, the fast-growing online marketplace for refurbished electronics and Montreal based artist Gab Bois. The collection, F/W 2005: Hardwear is a “first-of-its-kind capsule collection” designed to highlight the potential for a more circular tech economy, according to the Back Market website.

The Mobile Belt by Gab Bois and Back Market repurposes a flip phone as a belt buckle. (Image courtesy of Back Market.)

In the past decade, Back Market has emerged as a leading seller of refurbished technology and promoter of the idea of resale and re-use versus the “upgrade and dispose” status quo. Bois is a noted artist whose work often uses fashion to explore the intersection of fashion, technology and nature.

Contents: 
iFixit and Microsoft partner on Xbox replacement parts
Microsoft: Windows 11 won't run on machines without a TPM 2.0
ROBUST: a framework for repairable product design
Five year-old HP laptop declares parts, repairs no longer available
Four ways the tech we buy is designed to fail
We need a right to repair...AI! 

The collection has Back Market and Bois re-imagining otherwise worthless, discarded personal electronics into functional fashion accessories. That includes pieces like the “Mobile Belt,” which re-imagines a early 2000s era flip phone as a functional belt buckle (price: $550). An instagram post of the belt by Bois garnered more than 8,000 “likes.”

The collection evokes “an early-2000s nostalgia while calling out the catastrophic amount of waste generated by the tech industry,” with all proceeds from the collection supporting the Right to Repair movement including the Digital Right to Repair Coalition in the US and the Right to Repair Europe Coalition.

Though much of the conversation about “right to repair” has focused on personal electronics like smart phones and laptops, the clothing industry and the embrace of “fast (read: cheaply made, low cost, disposable) fashion” is a major driver of global waste, as the recent Netflix documentary “Buy Now” highlights, by visiting the African state of Ghana which has become a global dumping ground for discarded clothing from North America and Europe. On average, consumers wear a piece of clothing just seven times before discarding it, with consumers buying 60% more clothes than we did two decades ago.

In short: we need a repair movement for clothing - including a shift in focus from newness to durability and repairability. Props to Back Market and Gab Bois for reimagining both old tech and new clothing in a way that promotes sustainability!

Check out the full collection here.

Other News

iFixit and Microsoft partner on Xbox replacement parts

iFixit has partnered with Microsoft to offer official Xbox Series X and Series S replacement parts, aiming to promote device longevity and reduce electronic waste. The deal is a major win for Xbox owners, who have struggled to do basic repairs and maintenance because of the difficulty obtaining replacement parts. However, while many components are affordably priced between $20 and $60, Microsoft’s pricing of other parts underscores one of the major obstacles to DIY repair: skewed pricing the pushes owners to replace vs. repair. For example, as Tom’s Hardware points out, the cost of a Series X motherboard assembly stands at $599.99, surpassing the console's retail price of $499.99. This significant markup raises questions about the practicality of repairing versus replacing the console, especially when new units include additional accessories and warranties. (Read more…)

Microsoft: Windows 11 Won’t Run On Machines Without TPM 2.0

Microsoft is doubling down on its requirement that the newest version of its Windows operating system, Windows 11 only be installed on hardware with a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 2.0 security chip. The company has declared this "non-negotiable," emphasizing its critical role in enhancing system security by protecting encryption keys and ensuring boot process integrity. This decision affects users with older hardware lacking TPM 2.0 support, as they cannot upgrade to Windows 11. With Windows 10 support ending in October 2025, these users must either upgrade their hardware to meet Windows 11's stringent requirements or consider alternative operating systems to maintain security and functionality. As we have written, Microsoft has been playing whack-a-mole with user hacks of its that allow 'incompatible' PCs to run Windows 11 and work around the company’s obstacles. Advocates for more sustainable technology have noted that Microsoft’s strict policy prohibiting updates to Windows 11 may push as many as 240 million PCs that are ineligible for updates into the waste stream. (Read more…)

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