Garbage Jacket

Made with everything from plant waste and discarded firefighter suits, to recycled brass and polyester, the Garbage Jacket is a soft, fireproof jacket that reimagines garbage at the very centre of the supply chain, not the bit at the end that no-one wants to look at.

40 years ago Sylvester Stallone was freezing his butt off during a bitter Canadian winter on the set of Rambo First Blood. So when he spotted a derelict truck with a piece of rotting canvas stuck underneath it, he yanked it out, cut a hole in it with his knife, pulled it over his head to keep himself warm, and accidentally created one of the most iconic outfits in cinema history. It shows how easily our perception of what is and isn’t garbage can be altered.

Firefighter suits are typically built out from meta-aramid which is highly flame resistant, doesn’t melt and has powerful thermal resistance. Its properties aren’t reserved just for firefighters either. Make a list of some of the most extreme and demanding jobs in the world, from astronauts and F1 drivers to military pilots and tank operators, and you’ll find them wearing clothing built from meta-aramid.

Depending on the type, weight and velocity of a bullet, bulletproof vests normally need a minimum of 8 layers of para-aramid to provide sufficient protection. These layers of super strong fibres act like a net, catching the bullet and suppressing its kinetic energy. Bigger, heavier and more powerful bullets sometimes need more than 50 layers of para-aramid to be stopped. So while the Garbage Jacket is made with 30% para-aramid, and blended into a single layer with meta-aramid to add strength, it’s not bulletproof.

All this means that building a Garbage Jacket requires a totally different process to how you would build a regular jacket. It starts by gathering a huge pile of trash made up of old firefighter suits and unwanted fabric scraps that were produced during their original manufacturing processes. This pile is then shredded so that all of the fibres can be pulled out. These fibres are then ground before being blended and spun with para-aramid to make the new material. It’s then washed and brushed to give it a fleece texture.

Underneath the hoodie’s outer layer there’s a super smooth inner lining that feels a bit like rugged silk. The material is made entirely from recycled nylon which we get from fabric scraps that were produced during the manufacturing processes of other clothes. Even the thread we use to stitch the whole hoodie together is made from 100% recycled polyester.

There are recycled polyester drawcords at the back of the hood and at the hem so you can tighten the jacket up in harsh weather. The cord locks look and feel like regular plastic, but they’re actually made from 50% plant waste that comes from grains. Grains like rice grow inside a woody shell – called a husk or a hull – which is often thrown away after harvesting. Rather than let them go to waste we keep the husks and use them to make the cord locks, halving the amount of plastic that would normally be needed.

There are three ways to tackle sustainable clothing. You can use advances in material technology to make clothes with a longer life expectancy than the people wearing them. You can go back to using nature to make clothes that require as little energy as possible and leave no trace of their existence at the end of their lives. Or you can start digging into waste streams to use the stuff people have already generated and discarded. With our 100 Year range, our Algae range, and our Garbage range, we’re now tackling all three routes at the same time.