It all begins with a question. “What if we imagined a piece of clothing that would be positive for the environment ?”
The Process: We began by all meeting together to share our ideas! We were very passionate about creating a tangible solution to a big societal issue: Where do clothes end up when they’re thrown away? The answer in most situations is sadly: A landfill. But we started to think about a novel idea to renaturalise those places. Very keen on working with tangible mediums, our team quickly began searching for new and innovative materials. We explored London to find interesting material labs and found very interesting prospects, but in our head, there was always this idea about fast fashion. We also discovered something that would be our spearhead: Bucket hats are the 3rd most common item found in landfills. This discovery surprised and horrified us and we decided to do something about it.
In addition to our fellow students and our tutors, we also contacted various organisations across the UK to guide us and collaborate with us. We were honoured to interview Dr. John Dickie, Senior Research Leader at the Millennium Seed Bank. He shared insights on the seed conservation work done at the Millennium Seed Bank and enthusiastically advised us to contact UK festivals to collaborate and make usage of UK wildflowers. Our idea was beginning to take good shape and that’s when we met Reeti Roy, a Textile MA student at the RCA. She brilliantly advised us to use the Future Materials Lab at the RCA to create the inner structure of the hat out of mycelium, providing nutrients for the seeds to grow.
Once we were satisfied with the research and interviews we had conducted and the overall progress we had made, it was time for us to define the visual language of our project. First, a name, Bloom Bucket. Then, a palette and a logo. We iterated our ideas multiple times to arrive at a final result we were all satisfied with.
To visualise our final idea, it was crucial for us to have good renders. Following our idea of a mycelium hat, used to propagate UK wildflowers, we created a colourful vision that can now be seen all over our website.
It all continues with an idea. “What if we made it real?”
The Solution : When festival goers are purchasing their ticket online, they have the option to pay just a small addition to their ticket price to receive a natural bucket hat on arrival. After using the bucket hat for the duration of the festival, you can simply leave it behind at the place you were camping, and it will naturally and sustainably break down, in turn allowing the field to regenerate and beautiful local wildflower to grows.
