London-based Studio Swine has made beautiful products using junk floating in the sea, cast off glass bottles, and even spent beer cans. Now, they're back with another line of stunning home goods made from an unorthodox material: human hair.

The collection was created during a residency in China, is called Hair Highway in a nod to the famous Silk Road, and manages to weave together Shanghai's Art Deco history with a bit of Silence of the Lambs creepiness. Jewelry boxes, mirror frames, and combs are crafted by placing strands of hair in a silicon mold which is filled with a non-toxic, sustainably harvested resin derived from pine trees. The result is sheets of plastic that look like amber or exotic hardwoods that can be cut and assembled using traditional tools and techniques.

>"Hair is one natural resource that is actually increasing globally," says Murakami.

Designers Alex Groves and Azusa Murakami began working with hair while they were researching alternatives to tortoise shell, horn, and slow-growth hardwoods as materials for high-end eyeglasses and furnishings. As the developing world acquires a taste for the finer things, it puts increasing pressure on old-growth forests and endangered species. Luckily, it turns out Supercuts could be the solution to this material shortage. "Hair is one natural resource that is actually increasing globally," says Murakami. "We wanted to explore the possibility of using Chinese traditional crafts with a sustainable material."

Into the Hair Markets to Meet Mad Max

To accompany their collection, Studio Swine also wanted to document the the world's largest hair market in China's Shandong province. In a drab, smog-filled open air market, locks of all lengths and colors are sold like loaves of bread. Specialized vendors have stalls where hair gathered from nearby villages can be sorted by color, washed, ironed, and sewn into wigs and extensions. While these vendors are responsible for some of Hollywood's most glamorous manes, the market itself is threadbare. "The market is full of bikers with rabbit skins on the handle bars and sacks of hair brought of women in surrounding villages," says Groves. "At first it seems quite Mad Max, but they are actually really friendly."

Buying and selling human hair has become a billion-dollar business, filling the need for celebrity hair extensions, used-car salesman toupées, and some less savory applications. "In the past it has been processed for a protein that's used in baked goods and soy sauce," says Murakami, though rising prices have led manufacturers to replace hair with chicken feathers in their recipes.

Understandably reluctant to trust those who traffic in human body parts, it's customary for buyers to carry their own scales. "Virgin Hair" or soft hair that's never been treated, five-foot lengths grown over 15 year periods, and pure white hair from the aged are best-sellers. Blonde European hair is the most expensive product on offer, with a quarter pound of golden locks fetching nearly $2,000 on the open market.

>The responses have been more "oh, cool" rather than "eww, gross," but some people do raise concerns about the ethics.

Disturbing as the practice may seem, the tradition of selling hair and making items from it goes back a long way, "Alex's mother used to sew hair into tresses when she was was a young hairdresser in Paris," says Murakami. "The Victorians used to make jewelry from hair which you can find in the V&A Museum."

Despite its historical precedents, Studio Swine chose products where the hair wouldn't be immediately recognizable in an effort to open people's minds to the aesthetic and environmental benefits of fabricating with follicles. According to Murakami and Groves, the responses have been more "oh, cool" rather than "eww, gross," but some people do raise concerns about the ethics of turning part of the human body into furniture, to which Murakami responds, "We are used to people selling their time, skills, goods—why not their hair?"

Think your place could benefit from some vases made from tresses? The Hair Highway collection, which was recently exhibited at Design Miami Basel, is for sale through the Pearl Lam Gallery.