New York Times // 17.11.2009
For example, Eugenie Schmidt, 30, and Mariko Takahashi, 35, painstakingly reassemble secondhand clothes into brand new garments. The idea isn’t unique; the “Artisanal” collection by the Belgian designer Martin Margiela does much the same thing.
But the Berlin-based designers are attaching microchips to the completed clothes that contain information about, and even pictures of, the original garments — in essence, the “family tree.” The designers, whose label is schmidttakahasi, have been working for a year on the “Reanimation” project and have sold their first garment. It’s a bit of a novelty but, they say, it also conveys a concern for environmentalism and sustainability.
Should a customer get tired of an outfit — say, a coat crafted from two pullovers and a jacket, costing around €1,000, or $1,500 — he can bring it to the label’s atelier in the fashionable Mitte district and have it recreated. And, of course, all the revisions would be documented on the microchip, which is sewn into the garment and which can be laundered. The chip reader is in the designers’ shop, but all the information also is being posted on a dedicated Web site.
“And we can afford to develop this in Berlin,” says Ms. Schmidt. “Because it’s not expensive to live and work here, we don’t have to worry about profit right away.”
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