KUALA LUMPUR, April 13 — If 11 plastic bottles can make one comfortable yet stylish blazer, imagine the unlimited designs that can be derived from all plastic waste.
The idea of turning discarded plastic into a thing of beauty can be hard to accept without images of literal interpretations of what recycled fashion looks like — bin bags for dresses, bottle caps as accessories... you get the picture — but we can thank two Dutch women who last week, revealed the dazzling possibilities of recycled materials.
Let’s start with Monique Collignon, the Amsterdam-based couturier who launched her Couture Light: The Conscious Collection at the recent Starhill Gallery Fashion Week. The same collection opened Amsterdam Fashion Week.
She has dressed the likes of Giuliana Rancic and Carice van Houten of award-winning TV series Game of Thrones. From elaborate haute couture creations to breezy dresses and jumpsuits, the 53-year-old wants to change perceptions through her designs.
“When I tell people it’s plastic and I see how shocked they look, I know I’m connecting,” said Collignon, who was decked out in a black jumpsuit she designed using plastic recycled material.
“If people hear another speech about saving the planet, it might not get through. We have to rethink the way we present eco-friendly clothes. It’s important to make them enthusiastic.”
She started toying with eco-conscious textiles about seven years ago when her friend and textile engineer, Monique Maissan shared her cutting-edge fabrics. Since then, the duo have been working hand in hand and Collignon has designed three collections using these fabrics.
For Collignon, the transition to using recycled textiles came naturally.
Each piece also comes with a label to say how many bottles were used to produce the garment.
Maissan is the founder of Vision Textiles, a manufacturing company that researches and makes fabrics out of post-consumer PET (polyethylene terephthalate) bottles. With one factory in Tirapur, India and one in Shanghai, China, Maissan said there is no shortage of plastic bottles for her thriving business.
Under its wing, Waste2Wear is the fabric manufacturing arm while Waste2Weave focuses on small groups of women in India who weave for a living with appropriate labour wages.
With her 230 employees and counting, Maissan has carved a niche for herself in the garment industry and has strong philosophies about doing things the right way.
While climate change deniers and policy makers debate the big picture, the visionary’s remedy for pollution is to use the problem as a solution. Her company’s Plastic Catch programme identifies the problem of plastic pollution in the ocean which affected the livelihood of fishermen.
“We’ve asked fishermen to take an extra net when they go out to sea to collect the debris and plastic. At the harbour, we weigh the plastic and pay them,” she said.
It’s a brilliant solution that kills two birds with one stone — cleaner oceans and extra income for fishermen.
From one ingenious idea to another, Maissan is working on a 'cradle to cradle' solution that will reduce unwanted clothes from landfills.
“Let’s say you buy a dress and within a year or two you don’t want it anymore, you can deliver it back to us and we can recycle it again,” she said.
The dynamic textile engineer is also in the process of making uniforms for the Malaysian police force.
As business partners, Maissan and Collignon form the perfect synergy of technology and aesthetics.
Those who want to jump on the green bandwagon will be able to do so thanks to a partnership forged between Kloth Malaysia and GreenTech Malaysia Alliances. The recent joint venture will focus on delivering sustainable lifestyle products to the local market.
Kloth director Nik Suzila Nik Hassan, who met Maissan at the World Marketing Summit in 2013, aims to make Malaysia a sustainable lifestyle nation by 2030 and partnering up with GreenTech — a company specialising in green business spanning the areas of energy, transport, building, waste and water management — was a no-brainer.
At the launch event last week, GreenTech chief executive officer Woon Foo Wen said: “Today, we are experiencing one of the 15 hottest years in the history of mankind. Fourteen of those years were in this young century and that gives us a perspective of where we are heading.”
Kloth Lifestyle will play a pivotal role in being the contact point for Maissan’s revolutionary textiles as Waste2Wear’s exclusive partner in Malaysia. The multilingual businesswoman is a firm believer in education as the main catalyst for change.
“It all starts with the education system where children are taught to cultivate a responsible lifestyle,” she said, stressing the importance of informing consumers on the availability of eco-conscious fabrics.
Befittingly, two days after the partnership announcement, Maissan, Collignon, Nik Suzila and Woon found themselves at Universiti Teknologi Mara's fashion design faculty, where Maissan and Collignon delivered a presentation on their respective fields.
It was an insightful session for the 60 students which culminated in a little black dress challenge using Waste2Wear’s signature fabric. Six students received 2.5m of recycled fabric each to experience designing such a textile.
“I want to know more about recycled fabric and the importance of saving the environment,” said final year student Nor Atiqah Osman.
The promising partnership between Maissan, Kloth and GreenTech is proof that adopting an eco-conscious lifestyle — with regards to what we choose to wear — can be done realistically.
