Last week I discovered Carlings – and got totally amazed by their digital collection initiative!! Carlings is a Norwegian company founded in 1980 by Frank Varner; based on their sustainable DNA and thought-through values, they developed a digital collection which only exists digitally and will never be produced physically.
Why would you do that? Well, there’s different reasons to it. Most importantly:
every second the world wastes a garbage ton full of clothes
The environmental footprint of the (fast) fashion industry is huge. In fact, some argue it’s the world’s second most polluting industry just behind oil¹. Of course the reduction of its footprint, or even changing the entire supply chain to be non-harmful would be ideal; however this path is long (but I am convinced we’ll get there – digital being one key factor to the solution! see my personal motivation in more detail here). And as Carlings correctly states: ‘wearing clothes is inevitable’.
But the way garments are being often consumed nowadays feels very wrong, at least to me. Do we really need something new every week? Can we forget about factory workers’ working conditions for the sake of cheap? Is it really necessary to order 30 pieces of clothing online to possibly keep none of them? But using them to take pictures and post them on instagram? Just to be influencing or just inspiring yourself?
I don’t think so. I don’t want to believe so.
This is why discovering Carlings’ digital collection pushed my inspiration to the max. It doesn’t solve it all, no. But it’s a new approach, it makes you think, and it can inspire you with a new piece of clothing, which does zero harm to the environment and still provides you a fantastic new and very different look, due to its sort of spacy-style nature. In real life, extravagant clothing is usually very expensive, and if you do decide to buy this one special piece, it often ends up unworn in your closet – what a waste.
Fancy this cool puffer long? But maybe to wear it just one time? Get it here.
Well, this is not possible with Carlings’ digital collection – it will never hang in your closet – just on your disc drive. But it still enables you to express your style, on the media which gives you the largest exposure anyways: online.
How it works
Choose a piece of clothing on their website. Send in a picture of you which needs to be in line with Carlings’ requirements (e.g. wearing fitted clothes, doing simple poses, hair behind the shoulders). A 3D tailor then ‘fits’ the garment to your pose virtually (they use #clo3d for this part), adjusts the lighting and maps the 3D garment on your photo – done. Im going to test this process myself with one of my own 3D garments and compare the results. I have been involved in similar projects before, so I am aware of the process. However the project goals back then were different, and they were not consumer facing – so this is still next level stuff.
And the best part of it: all profits go to a non-profit organization called WaterAid, which works on improving water quality all over the world, but especially in areas where there is great need for better/drinkable water quality. Which is often the case in garment production countries.
Of course I gave the thing a go and ordered my very own Black Streak Boiler Suit!
This is the result:
Pretty cool huh? Want your own? Don’t wait too long, the digital collection has limited stock – I mean, it’s supposed to be inspiring, so why not do it the usual influencer-way and limit the stock, although digital never is out of stock!?
Thank you Carlings for inspiring me big time!
Shop Carlings’ digital collection here.
Polygondressing 