During the last edition of Milan Design Week, the global jeans brand G-Star for The Netherlands, presented a provocative art installation and new design concept based upon circular economy.
Photo: Maria Cristina Pavarini
G-Star x Marten Baas "More or Less" installation
The exhibition “More or Less”, hosted at the San Paolo Converso former-church, in Milan city center, was inaugurated on 17 April and can be visited until 26 April.
The project spotlights the endless possibilities of denim and the tension between the desire to own more against the need for less.
G-Star x Marten Baas, The Denim Cabinets
G-Star Raw unveiled its new thought-provoking collaboration and art pieces with the appreciated artist and designer Maarten Baas made from denim waste, showcased in the highly striking ambience of a deconsecrated Baroque church. The exhibition showcases a fifteen-meter-long private jet and a triptych of cabinets in the shape of jeans, all made using recycled G-Star jeans.
“G-Star has been sensitising its customers to bring back their old jeans to their stores in order to have them repaired if broken, eventually resold if one doesn’t want to wear them any longer, or thrown away if they are completely worn-out,” explained Baas. “In such case, G-Star delivers them to a partner that grinds the old jeans and by mixing those remains with a bio-based resin can produce special panels available for different uses,” he continued.
G-Star x Marten Baas, The Denim Cabinet
“As I am not especially familiar with creating art pieces that are so tightly connect with jeans and apparel, I liked the idea to provoke on more physiological and emotion stirring levels and expressed the inner dichotomy we are all living through the light installation at the entrance of this church and other art pieces,” he added.
He also explained why the location is also hosting a 15-meter private jet entirely covered with the special recycled denim panels. “By presenting this jet within this installation, I liked the idea to suggest some truly exclusive, aspirational and luxury object loved by many, but highly polluting. Differently, the jet I created will be the least polluting as it will never fly,” explained the designer.
“Similarly, I designed a series of three cabinets shaped like jeans, entirely made with recycled G-Star jeans meant to host new jeans. Therefore, what before was waste has become an artistic and useful container,” he explained, underlining how virtuously old useless jeans can transform themselves into new pieces that can be bought upon order.
G-Star x Marten Baas, The Denim Cabinet
“At G-Star, we believe that there is no limit to what denim can do. In this exhibition we’re spotlighting what our denim waste can become, and how we can change waste material into something meaningful that stands out–and that makes you wonder and think, because we all want more, but our planet needs less. Here we presented projects that symbolise the balancing act of G-Star being both a responsible and a successful brand at the same time,” added van Vliet.
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