PHOTOGRAPHY ANGEL CASTRO @___angelcastro
TEXT JESPER GUDBERGSEN@yessirjesper
Of the estimated 100 billion pieces of clothing that are produced each year, almost 70 billion of them are made of plastic. Let that sink in for a moment.
It’s not a new fact – these numbers date back about a decade and have likely only gotten more extreme since the mid-2010s – but it was nevertheless news to us and we needed to share. Why aren’t more people talking about the impact plastic has on us through the clothes we wear?
It’s a topic we’ll take a deeper dive into in the coming days, but for now here is our idea: we created a t-shirt, naturally made from better-for-you materials and with no toxic chemicals used to print. Our suggestion is to wear them as a way to gently nudge your surroundings into having the conversation and hopefully open some eyes to change along the way.
We designed the tees in collaboration with our friend, artist B. Thom Stevenson, who came up with two prints that are applied using non-toxic water based ink. The tees themselves are made with 100% durable reclaimed waste cotton and produced in the USA.
We shot the tees on a selection of our friends, family, lovers and loved ones, asking them all for a peek inside their head and hearts to share with us how, why and what they think about the climate crisis and what living sustainably means to them.
“Unfortunately, as long as there is plastic on this planet, we are going to have a big problem. People don’t care enough. Humans are by nature very self obsessed and as long as it benefits themselves, they’ll do whatever it takes. I think all we can do is hopefully educate ourselves more and try to use less plastic.”
– Maranda Widlund, hair stylist, @marandahair
“To me sustainability means efficiency. The opposite of waste, making use of what’s valuable around us.”
– Marc Palatucci, Chief Executive and co-founder of Submission Beauty, @_marcpal_
“Talking about the environment and the longevity of the planet can be overwhelming, but I realized I can do simple things every day that create change. Replacing plastic kitchen items with wood, using cotton bags for groceries… Big changes can be daunting, small changes are a great place to start.”
– Karen Levitt, stylist and costume designer, @karenlevittstylist
“As a native New Yorker, I’m used to snow in the winter and that’s stopped over the last few years. It feels like there is just something wrong with the weather – and there is. There’s indeed a huge climate crisis. There’s something missing and that something is bad.”
– Aaron Rose Philip, model @aaron___philip
