For the previous few weeks, folks internationally have been enthusiastic about which spooky character they will be dressing up as for Halloween. However what if the scariest outfit you possibly can put on is definitely your individual garments?
About now, you may be pondering that there is not something notably terrifying about your outfits. Whereas there won’t be something flawed along with your model, the actual horror story begins on a a lot deeper stage: the supplies from which your garments are made.
The primary artificial clothes was launched lower than 200 years in the past and is predicted to account for 73% of complete fibre manufacturing globally by 2030. Not solely this, however the common polyester product is prone to survive in landfills for greater than 200 years, which is actually harrowing.
Fortunately, legislative adjustments are being launched to curb the rise in throwaway trend tradition, which has been pushed by low cost, artificial clothes. Together with this, The Woolmark Firm has launched the worldwide model marketing campaign Put on Wool, Not Waste, created by artistic company 20(SOMETHING) together with Park Village and Studio Birthplace.
The Woolmark Firm is recognised as the worldwide authority on wool and has an in depth community of relationships spanning the worldwide textile and trend industries. This marketing campaign goals to highlight the environmental advantages of wool, making folks conscious that it’s the world’s most recycled attire fibre and has pure, renewable, and biodegradable properties.
“The ‘undead’ persistence of artificial fibres”
20(SOMETHING) has labored with Woolmark for the previous three years, together with on a strategic plan to establish alternatives throughout the sustainability class and outline Woolmark’s voice and positioning for the sector. In keeping with the company’s co-founder and artistic associate Will Thacker, sustainability is a vital cultural shift and a core focus for 20(SOMETHING), so their goal is to assist shoppers reply to this rising zeitgeist.
“Over time, we have had the chance to work with the UK’s largest inexperienced power supplier, one of many first organisations to implement plastic credit, and we even launched a T-shirt initiative permitting shoppers to offset their carbon footprint for a yr,” says Thacker. 20(SOMETHING) can be collaborating with an organisation devoted to defending an space of the Amazon rainforest equal in measurement to Norway to make sure that this important ecosystem stays untouched.
This current collaboration with Woolmark builds on the success of Put on Wool, Not Fossil Gas, which launched in 2022 and depicted folks lined in thick, black oil to hammer dwelling the truth that 350 million barrels of oil are used within the manufacturing of artificial fibres every year.
This yr’s message was extra centered on the environmental permanence of artificial supplies, and 20(SOMETHING) SAW it “an opportunity to make use of visible storytelling once more to carry an essential, often-overlooked concern into public consciousness”, says Thacker. The problem is delivered to life by a zombie apocalypse-like marketing campaign, which juxtaposes wool’s renewable qualities with “the ‘undead’ persistence of artificial fibres”.
“A visceral sense of horror”
Put on Wool, Not Waste is impressed by post-apocalyptic visuals seen in media equivalent to The Final of Us and exhibits “zombie garments” swarming city environments. Thacker explains how this metaphor “resonates with audiences, making a visceral sense of horror across the affect of artificial fibres”.
Whereas the company did discover different concepts, together with ‘The Finish of the Plastic Age’ – which might’ve proven folks shedding artificial ‘pores and skin’ like useless layers – the staff discovered the zombie apocalypse idea to be essentially the most impactful and applicable.
“As a part of our three-year effort to teach audiences, a key problem was elevating consciousness about material composition, which is commonly ignored,” says Thacker. Woolmark’s ‘Filter by Material’ initiative addressed this by selling clear product descriptions and higher e-commerce filtering choices to assist shoppers make sustainable decisions.
Thacker reveals that the primary yr’s outcomes have been promising, with a 13% enhance in wool consideration within the UK and 79% of viewers saying that the marketing campaign made them rethink the environmental affect of their clothes. “We goal to construct on this momentum to additional shift shopper habits,” he provides.
“A elegant, cinematic aesthetic”
To develop the highly effective ‘artificial zombie’ impact, Studio Birthplace labored alongside Deadpixel in an in depth post-production course of. One of the intricate challenges, says Thacker, was “the transition from movement seize to impact-responsive animation, the place artificial garments would realistically collapse upon affect, adopted by a complicated full-body fabric simulation to reinforce authenticity”.
From filming places to high-end VFX, each factor was deliberate with precision. Thacker explains how the staff used lidar scans of actual environments to make sure “a seamless mix between actual and digital worlds, attaining a sophisticated, cinematic aesthetic that introduced the idea vividly to life”.
So, possibly subsequent Halloween (and each day in between), you may bear in mind to Put on Wool, Not Waste.