Out of Fashion - The Waste Lab

An installation about fast-fashion waste and the resulting inequalities.

Out of Fashion is an installation created as Togolese first participation at the Triennale Milano. It explores the transformational potential of design vis-a-vis issues of waste colonialism caused by the fast fashion industry flooding the Global South with textile waste. The transdisciplinary project is a first step in an investigation of how the fashion industry’s excess is reshaping urban landscapes, particularly in Lomé, Togo, where mountains of discarded garments arrive by the millions each year. 


By tracing the journey of discarded fast fashion, Out of Fashion envisions new design opportunities that emerge from textile waste. The installation draws direct inspiration from Lomé’s urban landscape, which has been irreversibly altered by the global garment trade. Utilising the very materials it critiques, the work highlights the ingenuity of local, informal design practices that repurpose waste into functional and aesthetic elements. It highlights the lived experiences of those impacted by textile waste while proposing a shift in architectural thinking: from extraction to regeneration, from wastefulness to resourcefulness.
For the work pairs of denim jeans of various sizes were sourced at Hedzranaowe Market and assembled to create a large-scale canvas that undulates shades of indigo dye. Hung from the ceiling and reaching the floor, the resulting work is impossible to ignore, yet from a distance it is not evident what you are looking at. Out of Fashion urges viewers to reconsider the afterlife of our clothing, the consequences of unchecked consumption, and the potential of design to intervene meaningfully in cycles of waste. It is both a critique and a call to action. An invitation to imagine a world where architecture and design are not complicit in the crisis of overproduction, but rather, agents of its reconfiguration rather than exhilarators of global social and environmental inequality.

Research & Production, Lomé 2025
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Credits

Type: Exhibition
Title: Out of Fashion
Duration: May 2025 - November 2025
Location: 24th Triannle Milano International Exhibition in Milan, Italy
Duration: May - November 2025  
Studio NEiDA Team: Jeanne Autran-Edorh (Scenography and Design),Fabiola Büchele (Curation and Writing)
Production in Togo: Ateliers Lissanon
With particular thanks to: Françoise Autran, Atelier Filosof, Stefanie Finkbeiner, Max Edorh, Anaëlle Strauch, Giorgia Gheller, Linda Michelon
In collboration with the fashion designers: Désiré Lissanon (Ateliers Lissanon, Lomé) Amah Ayivi (Marché Noir, Lomé -Paris)



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