The 2020 Christmas Cats were produced by Studio Flétta, using used children's clothing from the Icelandic Red Cross. Product designers Birta Rós Brynjólfsdóttir and Hrefna Sigurðardóttir, who make up Studio Flétta, worked with Rammagerðinn to design the 2020 Christmas Cat, which has since become an annual event at Rammagerðinn with a new Icelandic designer each year.
"It's also a bit of work to design a product that fits the philosophy we have adopted as designers," says Hrefna Sigurðardóttir in an interview with Hús & Híbýli , "because we have set certain limits in our design. We don't design from just anything, but reuse widely used items and source materials from the local environment, with environmentally friendly processing methods as our guiding principle. So it was a bit of work but a lot of fun."
"When Rammagerðin approached us with the project of making a Christmas cat, we were given free rein in how we approached it and decided to keep it in the spirit of what we have done before. We did a little research and read up on the Christmas cat, which is perhaps best known for eating children who don't get clothes for Christmas, and we thought it was fun to play around with that idea a bit. That's how this idea came about, to make a Christmas cat made from used children's clothes," explains Birta Rós in the interview with Hús&Híbýli.
Birta and Hrefna run the design studio Flétta together, and they work with recycled materials in their designs. Among Flétta's previous works are ceiling lights, tables, lamps and shelves made from old awards and floor mats made from used jeans. Hrefna and Birta have twice received The Reykjavík Grapevine design awards for Product of the Year in 2019 and for Product Line of the Year in 2020.
The Christmas Cat is always produced in limited quantities each year and is only available in Rammagerðin stores.
