MORE THAN MATERIAL, LESS THAN WASTE
— The first upcycled digital brand for Version by Anne Sofie Madsen & Selam X

We invited Danish designer ANNE SOFIE MADSEN and Berlin studio SELAM X to collaborate on the world’s first digital upcycled brand. Drawing on a bank of render fragments assembled by Version, MADSEN proposed a collection of hybrid designs and SELAM X assembled the sketches into new digital garms. The project aims to activate thinking around systemic consumption and waste in the fashion industry. “There’s an ambivalence in fashion” MADSEN says. “In one way it’s all about revealing the future, being ever-changing and ahead of time and yet it remains trapped in its own monotonous routine of sales periods and overproduction, often manufactured by underpaid workers in developing countries.” The collaboration also points to a near-future scenario where virtual garments could be a way to offer non-consumable fashion, recalibrating ideas of luxury and value – “a parallel, metaphysical, post-growth creativity?”

“And yet this 80’s Madonna hit keeps appearing in my mind,” MADSEN adds:
‘You know that we are living in a material world
And I am a material girl.’”