Plastic waste continues to rise. It’s a global problem that the pandemic has accelerated. McCann Colombia and retail centre, Fontanar Centro Comercial, have launched the Wearable Bags project to help curb the use of plastic bags, in collaboration with fashion designer, Christian Colorado. The clothing collection is designed to carry purchases in a trendy and planet-friendly way and was shown off to the world at New York Fashion Week.
According to data from the National Tax and Customs Office of Colombia, between July and December of last year, the country’s inhabitants used 688.6 million plastic bags. Globally, more than 70% of this plastic will end up dumped in oceans and seas, and up to 12% will be burned causing pollution and disease in different areas of the planet. The use of millions of masks, gloves, bags, and plastic packaging material over the last two years has added to the problem.
Each item in the limited edition avoids the use of more than 167 bags per year The items can support up to 20kg, are made to last up to 5 years or 150 poses and are non-binary designs.
The creative team behind the idea, Diana Triana, César Cadena, Juan Prieto and Juan Cárdenas, stated. “We are focused on generating ideas that add, not only to our clients’ business, but also to the rest of the world, to the people and communities. With Wearable Bags we have the satisfaction of having contributed a grain of sand to a problem that has been asking us for strong actions for a long time.”
Colorado added, “These are items that offer double function to those who wear them, as they are jackets that can be used as bags, thus offering multiple contributions to fashion. The first, and most important thing for us is that they contribute to the environment, the second is style, and the third is the comfort they offer because people will no longer have to carry plastic or additional bags due to they can carry everything in their jacket. In this way we want to show the world that we can have style while taking care of the environment.”
The items in the collection can be found in the Mega Sale of Fontanar Shopping Mall. Manager, Andrea Sierra, stated, “At Fontanar we stand out for being a socially and environmentally responsible shopping center. For this reason, we are constantly looking for strategies and opportunities that allow us to contribute to our area and we find a great opportunity to do so with the help of Christian and the development of this new collection.”
