With &Other Stories for a new idea of upcycling

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With &Other Stories for a new idea of upcycling

26 September 2019

Istituto Marangoni Milano decided to take part, at the beginning of this year, in a "contest" conceived by &Other Stories, the brand launched in 2013 by the Swedish clothing group H&M. The project saw the involvement of second-year students of Fashion Styling & Visual Merchandising who created and presented ideas with a strong experiential focus, obviously driven by the theme of sustainability. Among the participating students, the winning idea was that of Gaetane Auffret who, thanks also to the synergistic work with colleagues, including Julia Rokos, Mariam Abuladze and Jisu Kim, imagined an innovative way of telling the theme of eco-sustainability through upcycling: the use of waste materials, destined to be thrown away, in order to create new ones. During the Milan Fashion Week, at the &Other Stories store in Corso Vittorio Emanuele II in Milan, Gaetane, along with Julia, held a series of workshops. The workshops saw the participation of many guests who were able to really learn how to package a bag, starting from their own unused garments (t-shirt or shirt). Gaetane explained the difference between the creation of a ‘t-shirt tote bag’, which is seamless, and a ‘shirt tote bag’, which instead requires a slightly more complex technique. In addition to the workshops, throughout the entire initiative, customers of the store had the opportunity to leave a personal message on a special ‘tree of desires’, which wants to represent the concrete hope for a real rebirth of the planet. "I love the concept of upcycling: not only is it wonderful to do something tangible to protect the planet but it is even more satisfying to do so by applying creativity, creating something unique and personal. My goal is primarily to show people how easy it is to give unused garments a second chance, creating something new and consequently reducing the environmental impact "- explains Gaétane Auffret, currently in her third year at Istituto Marangoni.