Nicole McLaughlin cut up old Arc’teryx Gore-Tex Pro shells — the kind engineered to keep a climber dry at altitude — and wove the dark brown strips into a fruit basket. It has a single arching handle and the white Arc’teryx bird skeleton stamped on the front, exactly where a summit logo belongs. Inside sits a full still life, each piece hand-sewn from scrap: bananas, grapes, an apple, a pear, an orange — not exactly granola. It was a gift she made for the CEO of Arc’teryx, who, despite his brand’s health goth vibe, couldn’t help but smile.

She’s been the brand’s first-ever design ambassador since 2021, so she gets to make fun of them to their face. Arc’teryx builds jackets as survival equipment — alpine gravitas, a logo that’s literally a fossil. McLaughlin builds volleyballs into shoes, croissants into a bra, chalk bags into sandals, and here takes the most technical fabric on earth and demotes it to pretend produce.