Spilled a glass of red wine over your favourite white shirt? Got an ugly pen ink stain on your lucky shirt? A typical solution would be an expensive trip to the dry cleaner or simply discarding your treasured clothing item.
Stockholm-based creative studio Mair / Wennel re-imagines these everyday blotches associated with being human to create a camouflage pattern called Dirt Pattern Material. The contemporary pattern doesn’t hide the wearer, it simply camouflages their past.
In an interview with PSFK, the aritsts said, “Although we like traditional camouflage such as the woodland pattern, we were interested in how a lot of them lose their function in big cities or within everyday life. It has become mere decoration—a way to be seen, as opposed to the original use as a way to hide. With this in mind, we started playing around with the idea of creating a camouflage that would be functional in a new way.”
The pattern is specially created to encourage people to wear it during social events and build on the design over time by creating new stains and stories. The disruptive coloration allows for new stains to be incorporated, continuing the design process and evolving the pattern over time.
“We were interested in exploring the potential of some kind of narrative right from the start. With this rather speculative design we want to make people think about function, usage, wear, process, the wanted and unwanted, the ugly and the desirable” explained the designers.
