Recover & Recast: The Rag And Bone Man
The Rag and Bone Man have become the pin-up for salvage chic and their unrelenting innovation as to what can be achieved with scrap metal means they continue to be sought out, writes Joe Bill
Sunburn, a tandem bicycle and a passion for scrap metal… there’s only one place to go.
While the cultural gravity of Margate’s moment continues to pull in the brightest thinkers and most creative crackerjacks to the Kent coast, one of the original sources of its magnetism may well have been initiated just off Northdown Road in a workshop stacked full of metal.
The Rag and Bone Man (@theragandbonemanuk) – AKA Paul Firbank and Lizzie Gossling – moved to the town almost a decade ago, making them virtually part of the furniture these days. Coincidentally, it was the sale of custom-made, repurposed furniture that started a chain of events leading to their place in the Thanet glitter-arti.
Stood, not sat – it is very much an operating workshop, with dust and oil and proper tools – in among a jet engine that’s now a chandelier and a Land Rover offcut that’s now a lamp, Paul is creating sensations from scrap. And there’s piles of it. There’s no wall space not covered in cogs and hubcaps. He must have an eidetic memory to catalogue what is actually in this place and where he can put his hands on exactly what he needs.
“Yeah, I do until someone comes in and bloody moves it,” he says. A welder by trade, Paul was working for a London firm creating giant frames for artworks by the likes of Damien Hirst before he and Lizzie took a body of their own work to the London Design Festival in 2011… and sold every last item. On such successes, new avenues open and he handed in his notice the next day to commence The Rag & Bone Man.
MOVING PARTS
In the pair’s Margate home stands a 1930s tandem bicycle that plays a significant part of the story.
“We peddled from Faversham to Dover, kind of stopping at places along the way,” explains Paul. “We got totally sunburned, on one side of us, ended up in a B&B in Margate and we just really enjoyed it.”
Lizzie adds: “You could already sense that creative thing happening back then.”
Paul continues: “It also didn’t feel that different from London. You’ve got to some seaside towns that are kind of quaint, whereas this was still pretty gritty. So it felt nice, really. There were loads of things going on and people doing their stuff.”
Having secured a significant commission for furniture from a Singapore hotelier, it was also clear that they could no longer operate the business from their garage (and a house full of metal).
Of course, in the early days of the exodus, the move from London was slightly more daunting than it is now. Could you still win work and retain clients from the capital? The answer was yes.
“If it’s international work, it doesn’t really matter where you are,” says Lizzie. “And around here, there are so many natural connections and collaborations. You end up getting new leads for work easier in a way that you wouldn’t have got in London.”
“Plus, clients come down for a bit of a tour and fish and chips on the seaside, too,” adds Paul.
Off the back of that first design exhibition, The Rag and Bone Man were asked to take part in their first TV show, chopping up a tractor for Kevin McCloud on Channel 4, of course.
Positive feedback meant they were invited back to appear on Kevin’s Supersized Salvage chopping up a 200-seat aeroplane.
“We were stuck in this warehouse in Wembley for six months, but when that came out it was epic... I think it trended on Twitter,” says Paul. “And for us it was amazing – we’re still making products off it now.”
Lizzie continues: “I think a lot of people connect with this story of The Rag & Bone Man. When we launched, people were starting to be interested in upcycling and attached that to what we were doing. And there was this movement of people getting into craftsmanship. We have been quite fortunate with these things.”
Their work has been featured in The Times, The Telegraph, Livingetc and Elle Decoration, on Channel 4’s Man Made Home and Discovery Channel’s Scrap Kings as well as on a mini-doc with Heineken.
Perhaps the appearances have elevated expectations on the type of works and creations that The Rag and Bone Man release… one thing is for sure, there’s been a shift in the type of scrap being sourced now.
“The things we’re working with have got more and more crazy,” says Paul. “From playing with fire extinguishers and simple things I would find in a London scrapyard to now, sourcing bits of a 1920s Rolls Royce and crazy bits of metal that have amazing heritage to them already and trying to reimagine them without ruining them.”
There’s a strong sense of responsibility on each piece created, to restore and re-energise rather than alter entirely: “Like bits of engine that have got holes in them, why drill more holes into them?” says Paul.
One of the most eye-catching pieces in the workshop is the jet-engine chandelier that was discovered on eBay – not usually the best source for that sort of piece, we are told.
“It’s a 1942 engine and it’s a complete one,” says Paul. “I think the world’s first recorded jet flight was around then, so it was proper spaceship stuff at the time. You see them in museums and places like that, it almost felt a shame to chop it up and turn it into something. But at the same time, I’d never seen the inside of one and it was never going to fly again. And that way a different group of people will be able to see it as a chandelier and appreciate it.”
There are bits of road sweeper dotted around and even a piece of the old Scenic Railway for a project he was working on for Dreamland.
“If you rethink them, they can be something else in a different light. Add to them rather than mangle them, basically,” says Paul, who I ask whether he sees himself as an engineer, welder, designer or artist.
“I’m a lucky person. I get to play with Meccano all day. I walk along the beach to work and play all day.”
Demand for The Rag and Bone Man’s unique slant on meshing the worlds of historical and industrial with the contemporary and creative never ceases. One case in point is the soon-to-release (at the time of printing) documentary about his latest creation, the Red Bull Gravity Bike, developed in a bid to break the downhill speed record.
Set to air on November 16th, the film of its design and production stars The Rag & Bone Man, with Paul having a little go on the bike himself, reaching 60mph – much to Lizzie’s dismay!
“The sequel will be one of their lunatic pilots down a massive hill on this bike. It’s over to them to try to break the record!”
Their malleable brand has also lent itself beautifully to gasoline culture and the world of motorsport, with, for example, Monster Energy asking Paul to create trophies for events such as the World Rallycross Championship four years ago and the MotoGP at Silverstone this year.
More recently, The Rag and Bone Man created a sculpture on show in the Old Town for the Malle Beach Race as it returned to Margate sands in September. The collaborations and commissions continue, but we’re running out of space to list them. Instead, we will leave you with a thought.
While they are pieces of art in their own right – each product is archived with its own individual tag, including a unique hand-stamped serial number with completion date – the process of salvaging and restoring is wonderfully indicative of a process we must all begin to believe in.
“I’m permanently in scrapyards,” says Paul. “To them, it’s rubbish and much of it will end up getting scrapped. But to me, it becomes something else.”
