The Service Jacket

To extend the lifespan of a garment and reduce its environmental impact, it must be reinvented in ways which do not impede its recyclability. Laetitia Forst contributed to Becky Earley’s 50-year shirt project within the Mistra Future Fashion research by transforming a polyester blouse into the lining of a jacket using design for disassembly techniques.

The jacket is part of a series of prototypes which were exhibited at the “Disrupting Patterns” exhibition in November 2018. These demonstrate how a polyester shirt might journey through a fifty-year lifecycle before being recovered as non-contaminated materials for chemical recycling. To be transformed from a polyester blouse which has reached its end of life into a jacket, an outer layer of polyester felt is added to the blouse which then becomes the lining. These two elements are assembled using a textile lock which doubles up as decoration around the neck and cuffs. These can then be disassembled to allow the materials to be cut up and up-cycled into pieces of jewellery to further extend the lifespan of the materials. The laser-etched surface decoration integrates this future transformation by a skilled artisan from the very beginning of the previous life.

The jacket was exhibited along with the shirts and jewellery at Futurescan4, Bolton University, 23-24 January 2019.