Slow Fashion at the Museum – Pack & Smooch at MKG Hamburg
Museum-Worthy: Step Inside the "Slow Fashion Lab"
At Pack & Smooch, we craft lifestyle accessories for the present while keeping a keen eye on the future. And yet, we feel particularly at home in the venerable Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg (MKG) – both with our work and our philosophy.
Three years ago, we had the honor of showcasing some of our products in the “Stylectrical” exhibition. The show focused on the clear and minimalist design of the U.S. company Apple. Naturally, our sleeves and cases couldn’t be missing. Today, it’s not a product, but one of our core values that has found its way into the museum at Steintorplatz: “Slow Fashion.”
As part of the excellent exhibition “Fast Fashion. The Dark Sides of Fashion,” the specially curated “Slow Fashion Lab” presents alternative materials and manufacturing processes. Visitors gain a well-researched and visually engaging overview of ethical production and consumption options for fashion and accessories. Panels inform about sustainable fibers, textile certifications, innovative technologies, alternative business models, and transparency criteria from young labels and producers.
Merino Sheep Wool: A Prime Example of Sustainable Quality
Slow Fashion stands for a shift toward greater respect and responsibility in the fashion industry. It includes eco-friendly sourcing of raw materials, sustainable production, fair trade, local supply chains, and transparency – all values Pack & Smooch embraces.
We are proud that Merino wool, one of our main materials, was selected for a dedicated display in the exhibition. Merino wool is the sustainable alternative to industrial yarns that often contain synthetic blends or mixed origins – sometimes at the expense of animals, farmers, and consumers.
In response, some producers are returning to high-quality fiber production. Raw wool is purchased directly from sheep farmers, then sorted, washed, combed, and made ready for spinning. The entire supply chain is transparent – traceable from the finished product all the way to the farm. All wool is certified pure and responsibly sourced.
Revealing the True Cost of Cheap Lifestyle Products
The “Slow Fashion Lab” complements the exhibition “Fast Fashion. The Dark Sides of Fashion,” which we strongly recommend (on view until September 20, 2015). “Fast Fashion” refers to the high-turnover, low-cost production model that floods the market with rapidly produced goods – with disastrous consequences for both people and the environment.
This is the first exhibition to critically and thoroughly examine the global fast fashion cycle. With videos, photos, documentaries and installations, it reveals the dark side of mass-market fashion and exposes the careless attitude behind consumer behavior today.
The exhibition brings together research from leading minds in theory and practice, examining environmental, economic, ethical, social, and design-related aspects. Only by laying bare the mechanisms of the current “Fast Fashion” system can we understand the true cost of cheap fashion and lifestyle products for all of us.
Exhibition Details
- Fast Fashion. The Dark Sides of Fashion
- March – September 20, 2015
- Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg
- Steintorplatz, 20099 Hamburg
- Visit the exhibition website
