The Future Mode + Nada van Dalen: Hyperlocal textile waste

How using a design lens can intercept donated textiles and keep them within the local ecosystem, creating value there or simply telling stories, before it reaches industrial sorting centers.

The companies involved

The Future Mode (Yophi Ignacia) is a consulting studio specialising in holistic solutions at the intersection of circular design, strategic advisory and education.

The Future Mode is researching and developing a local textile redistribution practice based at De HER, a circular hub located next to an environmental park in the Overschie area of Rotterdam. At De HER the main material that comes in is wood - not always usable or recyclable formats - as well as metal, old machinery… So not all of these waste streams are relevant to textiles, but in De HER some textile waste does come in, and there are three people who do work with the textile waste located in the building. Yophie would like to bring other designers in to access the remaining materials so that textile waste remains a hyperlocal resource. 

Through the FABRIX project, Yophi was able to meet Nada van Halen, a designer she was aware of already but hadn’t met in person. Nada is a self-defined “socially engaged, rebellious fashion label” who seeks to “show imperfections.”

The basis for collaboration

The collaboration focuses on intercepting donated textile before it reaches industrial sorting centres, assessing it through a design lens, and putting it to use for local makers. The core design question driving this stream is: How can incoming secondhand textile from the direct living environment — with all its irregularity, history and uniqueness — be archived, valued and used as a raw material for local design, without losing the story of the material?

Yophi was particularly fascinated by how Nada works very locally in the Halte Charlois neighbourhood. A concrete part of the collaboration is photo registration as visual research: what comes in at the HER in Overschie, and what does it tell us? This visual archive is compared with the visual research Nada van Dalen is already conducting from Halte Charlois in the Charlois neighbourhood, creating a comparative picture of what textile circulates per neighbourhood and what that says about the people and the place. Archiving and collecting thereby become not only a practical instrument, but a research method in their own right. Together, the two neighbourhoods of Overschie and Charlois form the geographic and social backbone of this investigation.

The outcome of encounter between designers and thinkers, the consultant and the waste wouldn’t necessarily have to be a garment: the idea is to change systems and outcomes, which means that maybe the outcome would be educational programmes, exhibitions and storytelling (like discovering and narrating peoples’ stories related to their garments, a method that can give them greater value). Whether a physical result emerges depends entirely on what the research reveals and whether the incoming material meets these specific design needs. The primary outcome will be a visual and documentary archive, best displayed using wall space or a standing display format.

Contributed by Cedecs-TCBL.