Everything about this ad, from the film to the audio, is 100% recycled, and so is the product: the "Trash Tee".
A charming (if mildly disjointed) new commercial from a Los Angeles-based ethical clothing company takes an old adage—”the medium is the message”—to a new level.
The brand, Everybody.World, has a staple product called the “Trash Tee,” a 100 percent recycled cotton T-shirt, made from meticulously processed waste fibers.
After meeting the company’s co-founders—Iris Alonzo and Carolina Crespo, both alumni of American Apparel—director Anton du Preez decided to make an ad that was also 100 percent recycled.
They shot new footage on vintage Kodak film, so it would match with 14-year-old stock footage, deftly cut together by Winnie Cheung, an editor at production company Picture Farm. And for the voiceover, they spliced together snippets of PSAs from the 1950s.
“The Earth’s resources are precious, and fashion can be dirty” says the chopped up narration, with a range of different voices picking up as little as a word at a time in what might be best described as a mad robot audio collage. “We think about our planet constantly, and as manufacturers, we do our best to do the right thing.”
Meanwhile, an arty montage flashes across the screen, showing sunny blue skies and manufacturing lines, smiling workers, fabrics floating in the breeze, and cityscapes of L.A.
“So, we invented a new fabric for our T-shirts that’s made from 100 percent recycled cotton, which means that we can use the waste that other companies disregard,” it continues. “We can use what others find useless to create something useful for us and less stressful for the environment. Because if we don’t care enough to change the way it’s done, who will?
EVERYBODY.WORLD - TRASH TEE from Anton du Preez on Vimeo.
