An installation currently on display at the Mall of Arabia in Cairo, Egypt, gives visitors a sense of the amount of clothes they typically buy, and potentially throw away, over the course of a lifetime.
The brainchild of designer Laura François, who works in the realm of sustainable and ethical fashion, and photographer/videographer Ben Von Wong, the “Tallest Closet in the World” is a towering structure holding 3,000 items of clothing — what the project team roughly estimated to be the number of garments used by the average person in the developed world over the course of a lifetime.
The project’s goal, they say, is to offer a tangible experience that drives home the amount of clothing consumed and that, in turn, makes its way to landfills (a truckload a second, according to the team).
The nearly-30-foot tall structure was made from recycled steel, aluminum and wood and filled with donated clothing over the course of five days.
A clothing donation box at the center of the structure offers visitors a possible course of action. Both the clothing used in the installation and items donated over the course of the exhibition will be given to local Egyptian NGOs supporting refugees.
The installation will remain on view at the Mall of Arabia through January 8. CC
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