Art & Ecology:
Photoessays: Art and the Earth
Earthly Matters
Recycled Chic
by Suzanne Seriff, Ph.D.
"It's just about fun, and about reinventing and recycling and reusing.... like taking something that was considered trash and discarding it and then turning it into something cool and kitsch."
- Brent Wallace, Lee Carter Co., San Francisco, California
Americans have lately "discovered" recycling in much the same way that Columbus "discoverd" America. They have finally caught up with what other people in other parts of the world already knew: Trash is a relative term.
In the past five years, dozens of American companies with names like "Remade in the U.S.A," "Recycled Revolution," "Little Earth Productions," and "Used Rubber USA," have taken off on the ideas of folk recycling from around the world, and created a fast-growing consumer niche for products that "look good" and "save the earth," all at the same time.
When companies like American Express splash their names across the latest in recycled fashion, it is a sign that the so-called "recycling revolution" has made a circle home again. The country responsible for almost half of the world's trash is now claiming the spotlight for its most glittery re-consumption.
Lee Carter is an American designer and wholesaler of a complete line of recycled specialty objects that he calls "pop-modern-Mexican-folk-like arts and stuff." The designs for his products are based on traditional folk Catholic tinwork in Mexico--nichos, reliquaries, and frames--but with a contemporary "twist" that appeals to his hip trans-national clientele. Namely, the tin is recycled from discarded beer, fruit, battery, and vegetable cans, with the product labels showing as a conscious stylistic design.
What is done in the name of survival in many parts of the world has become "designed re-use" in America. And recycling seems to have become an end in itself, in the world of late twentieth-century haute couture.
Isaac Mizrahi, one of our nation's most exclusive dress designers, recently unveiled a Spring fashion line that featured "sequins" made from recycled beverage cans. As if to accentuate the ironies and opportunities of global recycling, the Mizrahi Company chronicles this line's complicated production cycle: first the cans were collected by the homeless of New York City and flattened by immigrant groups in New Jersey. They were next shipped to Paris where the pailettes (sequins) were cut. Then the pailettes and the silk fabric pieces cut in New York were shipped to India, where seamstresses sewed them to the fabric. The pieces were then returned to New York for "Made in America" garment assembly. Modeled as haute couture in New York, these chic jackets and dresses sell for thousands of dollars on the international market.
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