The project Rock Me Again (the title implies ‘wear me again’) offers a group of fashion designers the opportunity to take on the creative challenge of rethinking and reworking the form and function of old clothes and to give them a new life. The environment-friendly element is, of course, a welcome side-effect of the project. However, it is the process of re-creation itself that is the primary stimulus of the project.
Says Trevor Mitchell, director of the conceptual event design practice, Capsule Projects, that initiated the project, “Of course, taking something old and turning it into something new is not a new concept. But we are nonetheless inspired by the idea of challenging designers to give something that is destined for the landfill a contemporary aesthetic and a second life. After all, as that genius Maison Martin Margiela once mentioned about his own reworked garments, they are the result of a new moment of creation. Once they have been reworked, they belong to the future from that moment onwards.”
The designers contributing their time and creative energy to the project are Clive Rundle, Christopher Strong, Take Care, Rosenwerth, Blasoen, Rachel de Mardt, UNkNOWN, Cindy Pool and Reworked by Stefania Morland.
The project involves engaging the vida e caffé customers by encouraging them to bring in their old clothes and to drop them into the Rock Me Again bin (pictured above) that they will find stationed at some vida e caffé stores in Cape Town (Kloof Street, Wembley Square and Green Point) and Johannesburg (Greenside and 24 Central Sandton). The bin itself is a re-purposed cardboard tube that was created especially for the project by Thingking.
The process of collecting old clothes and reworking them will culminate in an online photographic exhibition that will feature fashion images of the garments captured by photographer Sivan Miller. On 1 December an announcement will be made on this website, as well as the Between 10 and 5, VISI and vida e caffé websites, as to the date that the exhibition will be broadcasted.
Rock Me Again is presented in association with Jameson Irish Whiskey and supported by VISI, vida e caffé, M1 Management, Wembley Square and Between 10 and 5.
