For my media studies project The waste jacket, I want to call the attention to the amount of waste that we produce and use in our daily lives. Inspired by Joseph Beuys’s Felt Suit (1970), the jacket I designed is a symbol of todays’ consumeristic society. It is a design experiment towards sustainability and alternative ways to re-use materials. In doing so, I explore the potentialities of mediation - through a piece of garment- as an act to discuss the effects of consumerism onto the environment.

My research started with an archival practice of my own waste materials. The garment is finally consisted of waste collected over four days and covered by recycled transparent plastic hand sewed and stapled together. The overall recycled waste textile uses different types of materials: paper, plastic, fabric and aluminium. Other elements are simply re-used in their shape changing their function. In fact, the Sainsbury’s flour pack becomes a pocket and the cork bottle cap a button. The label is an analytic explanation of the different materials used.

With The waste jacket, I don’t prompt to find simplistic solutions on ways to recycle materials. On the contrary, I aim to discuss ecological concerns around the extreme abundance of objects as well as consumption and production as environmental violence.