As a flight attendant of 22 years, I am excited to be part of this Brave Soles project and am sure you will love it as much as I do. Paper & Wings welcomes the airCRAFT Collection to our designs. You just might recognize the leather from one of your flights.

Here is a little about the airCRAFT collection from Brave Soles:

"I have logged many, many miles from a plane seat. In fact, I sit on a different plane seat an average of 60-80 times per year.

Perhaps I have even sat on the same seat more than once.

Those seats have caused me a stiff neck when I fell asleep before takeoff, they have snugged me down tightly during crazy turbulence, and they have been the place where I have read amazing books and been transported to other worlds via the entertainment on the seatback in front of me. 

They have also been the places where I have worked long hours on Brave Soles' dreams, have written books, blogs, and articles and written love notes to the ones I am thinking about. 

However, I have to admit that I never once considered where they came from or what will happen to those seats when they are replaced. 

In fact, the world around us is filled with materials and objects whose origins we rarely consider...

• Where do those materials come from?
• How are they sourced?
• What is the manufacturing process behind them?
• Who are the faces and stories of their existence?
• What kind of history do they contain?

Whenever I pick up a newly minted pair of our Brave Soles shoes and turn them over to look at the tire soles, I often wonder about the stories they contain. The possibilities can make my imagination run wild.

...we are proud to say that we have a whole new line: The Aircraft Collection.

Each item in the collection may look a little familiar to some of our classic designs, but these particular designs are chosen for how they fit our mission: to upcycle leather and tires in beautiful, captivating ways.

We may not be able to control how the seats got there in the first place, but we can definitely help them continue to be useful and beautiful. 

The best part of our Aircraft Collection is that EVERY part of the entire plane seat is being upcycled:

• the leather goes into our accessories
• the vinyl fabric from the underside lines our wallets
• the padding from the back and bottom is the new protection in an upcoming item that we are having a hard time staying quiet on 
• even the velcro is being cut away and given to local community members to refurbish and sell

We are proud of this story and we are proud of the people who own these items and share their own adventures with them. 

Each item is named after an airport that those seats have landed in. Each story we have given them is fun, inspiring and we hope that their beauty will make you smile. 

Because this life is beautiful.

Building a future you are proud of takes commitment and discipline.

But I have discovered that along the way, when you embrace laughter, surprise and inspiration about what's possible, your spirit begins to rise with beautiful possibilities. 

Let us know what you think of our new Aircraft Collection."

-Brave Soles