Less: Repurposing The Unwanted (Footwear)

2022

It's difficult to envision a world without textiles. Almost

everyone, from any and all layers of society, comes into contact

with them on a regular basis. This is especially true in the case

of clothes, which is the subject of this research. Clothes offer

comfort and protection, and they are an essential expression of

personality for many people. The textiles business is also a

large part of the global economy, employing hundreds of millions

of people all over the world, because its scale of production

exceeds that of all other businesses, the fashion and textile industry

is amongst the most polluting on the planet. Textile

production requires a lot of land for cultivation, as well as a lot of

water, energy, chemicals, and other resources, leaving behind

typically untreated pollution and having a severe environmental,

economic, and social impact. According to the United States

Environmental Protection Agencies (EPA) in 2018, 11.3 million

tons* of textiles (clothing, although other smaller sources include

furniture, carpets, tires, footwear, and other nondurable goods

such as sheets and towels.) landed on the landfills,

alone 9.3 million tons were generated from the clothing and

footwear industries. In total, only 2.5 million tons

of this waste were recycled. In comparison to 20 years prior, 6.3

million tons* were generated, which is almost double the

amount.

Fashion can be defined as the abandoning of totally functioning

clothing for merely semiotic or symbolic reasons. Fast

fashion (fashion cycles entering and exiting at high rates) has

increased the rate of garment consumption and disposal in

recent years, resulting in an oversupply of yet functioning, unwanted

clothes, which mostly ends up in landfills. It has

been suggested that by repurposing unwanted clothes, the new

value could be added to these products, which is one solution

to the overconsumption-disposal concerns associated with overflowing

secondhand clothing marketplaces, and to be the

most widely sought-after method of sustainable design.

LESS is a pair of mules which made of repurposed unwanted textilles findings on the streets and any other non-textilles materials. The purpose of this project is giving a new life to personal unwanted objects also supported by the Japanese philosophies Boro and Wabi-Sabi, where imperfection is highly appreciated.

A project by Andrew Artajaya

Project Supervisor: Dipl. Des. Patricia Hepp

Köln International School of Design (KISD)

2022 all rights reserved.