A vintage fashion range by an oat drink brand is one of the more conservative wild ideas that Oatly’s in-house agency has dreamed up. The range of upcycled vintage rain jackets fits in with Oatly’s sustainability mission. It also fits in with the vintage fashion trend and makes Oatly cool (if drinking plant-based milk, eating more plants generally, and caring about the planet wasn’t cool already).
The 2022 range, Drip Dry High, is a repeat of last year’s campaign in which two vintage denim jackets were dropped on its merch site every day between October 18 and 22. Each was unique and created by a female artist. Part of the money earned was donated to The Lower East Side Girls Club, a not-for-profit that provides plant-based after-school meals and environmental justice education to young women and gender-expansive youth of colour in New York City. Despite the US$250 cost, the idea was clearly successful. Last year, Oatly also produced upcycled Oatly-branded t-shirts, in partnership with secondhand clothing company, Goodfair, and a range of vintage holiday sweaters.
The new vintage rain jacket range is available from September 12. The revamped jackets, with pro-planet, pro-plant-based designs, were created via ReRuns, Oatly’s existing program that upcycles vintage garments into one-of-a-kind pieces. All proceeds of the program go to the Lower East Side Girls Club again.
“For each ReRuns limited-edition drop, including this one, we source garments from independent sellers, shops and collectors around the world that clearly love and have a passion for vintage pieces,” stated Rinee Shah, creative director at Oatly. “For this drop, we collaborated with 10 real-life, sustainably-minded artists from Barcelona to Brooklyn to LA to London, who thoughtfully turned each rain jacket into a singularly unique piece ready to spread the word about plant-affirmative lifestyles.”
The campaign, Drip Dry High, will be given a sneak peak on Oatly’s Instagram before the range is released. Drip Dry High is a fictional high school plagued with rain so relentless that the classroom ceilings leak. The football team has learned to play with umbrellas, and rain conspiracy theories occupy the minds of staff. Each character sports a pre-loved rain jacket that has been given an artful second life and environmentally conscious design. The campaign is filled with tropes from classic TV reruns, like a grumpy lunch lady and an overzealous football coach.
“The goal of Oatly ReRuns is to push ourselves as a company, to constantly improve the environmental friendliness of all facets of our business and highlight some very cool and deserving artists. These pre-loved garments also tout pro-plant-based messages, and we at Oatly believe a global shift to a more plant-based food system is vital for the survival of our planet,” Shah added.
Drip Dry High was produced entirely by Oatly’s in-house creative team. Oatly has also enlisted men’s streetwear brand HypeBeast to amplify the campaign across its website and social channels on the day of the drop.