Courtesy photo
Fashion designer Jeremy Scott has collaborated with Korean car company Hyundai on a Korean capsule collection.
The collection of 10 one-of-a-kind pieces is made from upcycled Hyundai motor vehicle scrap. The collaboration is part of Hyundai’s Re:Style program, now in its fourth year, which enlists top fashion designers to turn car junk into fashion.
The project begins after Scott announced that he would be stepping down as Moschino’s creative director after 10 years.
Jeremy Scott’s capsule collection made from recycled Hyundai car parts.
Hyundai launched the project in 2019 with fashion designer Maria Cornejo. Re:Style has successfully collaborated with Selfridges in London and L’Eclair in Paris.
Hyundai contacted Scott about the Re:Style project during the 2022 FIFA World Cup after the car company commissioned him to design a series of jerseys. A Hyundai designer asked him how he felt about a project using recycled car parts, and the collaboration was born.
Jeremy Scott’s capsule collection made from recycled Hyundai car parts.
For the capsule collection, Scott used materials discarded from the production of Hyundai Motor Company’s electric vehicles.
“The Hyundai car became my muse,” Scott said. “I started thinking about how I would take this look to a place like the Met Gala. I wanted something bold, theatrical and funny.
To create illusions of a car-inspired cowl skirt, Scott added seat belt buckle details to cowls, took car handles to make jackets and made a fishtail skirt from windshield wipers. He describes the collection as “50s cocktail meets cyberpunk.”
While Scott says he loves the experience of designing the collection, working with upcycled auto parts has been a learning curve. “I really enjoyed making this collection, but it was challenging,” he said. “It wasn’t easy to capture the essence of what I was looking for using recycled auto parts. Try creating a gown structure using windbreakers.
Jeremy Scott’s capsule collection made from recycled Hyundai car parts.
The idea behind the collection was to address the environmental impact of the fashion and automotive industries. Scott is known for being part of fashion’s bicycling era, reinterpreting dry cleaning bags, torn-up magazines and trash cans into ready-to-wear looks. The Re:style collection of HMC’s electric vehicle range includes bio TPO leather, partially made from sugar cane, bio pet and auto accessories such as hub caps, wires and keys.
According to Sungwon Ji, Hyundai’s vice president and global marketing officer, Hyundai wanted to connect with the fashion industry through the company’s Re:Style partnership because “both the automotive and fashion industries are considered as industries that produce a lot of waste in different industrial channels. We believe they can be turned into art. This fresh perspective shows that waste can be turned into amazing resources. The goal is to create opportunities for the automotive and fashion industries to think more proactively and creatively about sustainability.
For Scott, sustainability has become like second nature after his years with Adidas.
“Now, working with Adidas, all the innovations are recycled materials,” he said. “Even with Moschino I used a lot of recycled plastics. Sustainability is very standard in everything I do. This collaboration is different from what I have done before, but for me creativity is like water. I pour in the pool or crack on the sidewalk and inspire, challenge and teach. This collaboration with Hyundai has done all that.
The partnership highlights Hyundai Motors’ commitment to environmentally friendly products and its relationship with environmentally conscious consumers. Re:Style is the latest milestone in Hyundai’s mission to become carbon-neutral by 2040 and zero emissions in its supply chain by 2045.
Gee praises Scott’s ability to transform old and faulty cars into fashionable clothes, saying, “Jeremy has created a couture collection, the highest level of fashion. With its unexpected, clever feel, it visually demonstrates the vastness of sustainability by showing that everything discarded can be recycled and transformed into something beautiful and wonderful.
The Re:Style archive exhibition opens in Seoul on Wednesday, after which it will be open to the public for two weeks. The space includes Jeremy Scott’s collaborations and all Re:style archival pieces.
Scott’s latest collaboration follows his announcement that he will be stepping down as Moschino’s creative director after 10 years. In a statement, he described his time at Moschino as “an incredible celebration of creativity and imagination.” In an Instagram post announcing his departure from Moschino, he and Gigi Hadid captioned a photo that read, “It’s exciting and exciting as I close this chapter.” [sic] Stay tuned for what I have to share with you next!”
Scott He founded his own eponymous label in 1997. Moschino’s final Fall 2023 collection was shown at Milan Fashion Week, inspired by the ’80s Ladies Who Lunch.
