The Purpose of Play

Acne Studios is focused on play in its latest capsule for its repurposed series. Our global hearts have tightened watching Ukrainian children experience moments of play in their bunkers as Putin’s Russian forces make their lives a living hell.

In fact, making time for play can help our children build resilience. Researchers believe that playfulness never dies within the hearts and minds of adults; yet, the tendency to engage in joyful playfulness most often dies a slow death inside us, as we age.

Acne Studios sets out to cure this lack of playfulness — and especially among young American adults, who are increasingly in need of play. Often committed to environmental action with deeply-held values and beliefs, young teens believe that our entire planet is in peril, and they are angry about our disregard for Gaia’s future.

These young people influence friends and families. As activists and artists with purpose, they are also impacting trends in our relationship with fashion and the clothes we wear. In many cases there is values-driven linkage between these young people and environmental activists from the boomer generation, people who demanded environmental action five decades ago — so that the world would arrive at this place of total peril on Planet Earth.

Acne’s Deadstock Fabrics Get New Life

Acne Studios is headquartered in Stockholm, producing men's and women's ready-to-wear fashion, footwear, accessories and denim. In 2021, the brand launched a project to turn excess textiles into new capsule collections.

Titled Seasons 7 & 8, the latest collection continues this mission by reimagining woven silk, jersey, fleece and eco-printed denim fabrics. SHOW studio’s Olu Odukoya, an artist and art director, with a specialty in bespoke creative projects in the worlds of both contemporary art and luxury fashion, served as curator of the latest REPURPOSED project. He is the founder of the international creative agency OMO Creates Ltd.

“What struck me about the Repurposed collection is that it is designed with a social conscience, and with several good intentions in mind,” said Olu Odukoya, an artist and creative director who curated the campaign. “All these clothes are designed so that every single person can wear them, regardless of gender or identity. For me, that feels really modern, powerful, and joyful – and that’s what youth is all about.”

The campaign created for Acne Studios REPURPOSED Season 7 includes models Fanta Fofana, Jakob Eilinghoff, Luca Biggs and Lydia Kloos, styled by Jodie Barnes. Ladislav Kyllar [IG] photographs the new delivery of reimagined woven silk, jersey, fleece and eco-printed denim fabrics.

Many garments feature eco-bleached, overdyed and eco-stonewashed effects to create a worn look. The fashion industry has made considerable progress in recent years to adapt the desired effects of stone-washing with new technology like like ZERO STONE — as one example — of a process that uses 43% less water, 18% less energy, 19% less chemical, and 5% less labor impact per garment than traditional stone washing.

AOC is not suggesting that Acne Studios used the ZERO STONE process. We simply searched to determine whether “eco-bleached, overdyed and eco-stonewashed” fabrics really do exist to reduce environmental impact, as opposed to being mere greenwashing words.

We do not know the nature of processes used by Acne Studios.