Macapit Spirit

A pespective against fast fashion.

In this era that has modern technology to produce billions of mass product in an hour, there is something that really unique: Eco-print. The technique of Eco-print is completely different from modern thing, it’s slow, unpredictable, and manual. The three  characteristics of eco-prints are blowing people’s minds in this modern high-fast fashion era, why? Let me show you.

UNIQUE AND PREDICTABLE

Fast fashion starts from ‘precision’ and the same detail. When you buy something (bag, hat, clothes) in big retail store, you will find thousands or maybe million people wear the exact same pattern. When everyone same, it’s boring. Can you imagine when piano has the same melody? There will be no harmony.

Eco-print uses real tannins from flowers, and leaves that are attached directly to the material (fabric or leather), then nailed. This is the step that can give unique factor. Each  leaf has a different water content and pigment, the result will not same 100% each other. When other people have the same thing, you will have the one and only art in the world that couldn’t be produce by mechine.

“SLOW FASHION’ AS A MEDITATION

The fast fashion industry demands speed while eco-print demands patience. Do you want to look at the processing steps?

• Mordanting: Prepare the material such as fabric or leather (it can take days)
• Searching: To ‘create’  an amazing motif, you need to look for the flowers and leaves, for your information, not all of that can be applied in the material
• Steaming: smean the fabric or leather for hours to take the ‘soul’ from the leaves and flowers.

For those who love eco-print, this process is the a form of meditation. In the middle of a ‘rushed world’, eco print asks you to enjoy the moment (slow living) and respect every second of creating something.

ETCHICS BEHIND THE AESTHETICS

We can all pretend not know that fast-fashion contributes to the world’s largest water pollution due to synthetic dyes. This thing sometimes tickles people to looking best solution for saving the world through the zero waste technique, eco print.

• Materials: Leaves and flowers (mostly fallen from the tree)
• Waste : Residual steaming water does not contain toxins that are harmful to the soil. People’s love for eco-print is a reflection of the increasing ecological awareness. Having an eco-print is not just a style but a bold statement of attitude that we care about earth.

EMOTIONAL CONNECTION WITH NATURE

Psychologically, humans have an ancient bond with nature. The eco-print motif that displays leaf veins in detail gives tranquility to the rigid computer graphic design, which does not have. There is an organic warmth that radiates us as if wearing ‘a piece of forest’ on our body.

AGE OF ECO-PRINT

Fast fashion items tend to be quickly damaged and thrown away. On the other hand, eco print products especially if applied to leather media bags or natural fibres such as silk and linen have an increasingly beautiful character as they age. The natural colour may change a little but that is what is called time change, which adds its artistic value. This is also an extraordinary mutation, like how people age like wine

People love eco-print not because it is perfect, but precisely because of its imperfection. In the midst of a world filled with plastic and artificial goods, eco print offer something original, aesthetic, and soulful. It is the way we celebrate nature as well as the way we say ‘enough’ about craze of fast fashion.