Made In

Context

Four young talents were asked by the National Museum for World Cultures to get inspired by the artefacts from the pre-plastic collection of the museum depot, and to develop new ideas from here.

Process

Five wearable objects from the 19th and 20th centuries, all made of different local materials from different continents, led Lena Winterink to think about the clothes we wear nowadays. What materials do we wear today? Where do they come from? Who made them? And what is the significance of their place of origin nowadays?

'Made In'

The words ‘made in…’ can be found on almost every label attached to our garments. But the information about the origin and used materials of a garment are not always transparent. Furthermore, when recycling garments, the labels need to be cut out to keep a high material-quality. With ‘Made In’, Lena Winterink links the global mass production of fashion with a new definition of locality. The coat is made of over 1.300 labels cut out of discarded garments, each providing “information” about the material and origin of the garment it belonged to. With this coat Winterink highlights the disappearance of locality from global production systems.