MORE OR LESS exhibition by Maarten Baas and G-Star RAW – All photos by ©G-Star Raw.

Design, Fashion – “Each year in Milan, I enjoy the tragicomic dialogue between green design and mass consumption.” Says Dutch designer and artist Maarten Baas who returns to Milan Design Week with the thought-provoking exhibition in collaboration with fashion brand G-Star RAW.

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People from around the world fly to the Italian city to showcase recycled furniture and talk about sustainability – but tons of materials are regularly wasted the day after the design week. “When G-star approached me to work with recycled jeans, this was the perfect opportunity to address this curious dilemma instead of just acting as if we were saving the world. More or less…”

MORE OR LESS is also the title of the exhibition that features a fifteen-metre-long private jet that was entirely wrapped with patches of recycled denim bolted across the plane body. The art piece “shows the endless possibilities of denim,” adds G-Star RAW. The jet is also a reminder of another international event, the Davos annual conference in January, during which heads of state, tycoons, and global activists gather to talk about sustainability with their private jets.

 At MORE OR LESS, the designer and G-Star RAW also present three functional cabinets from recycled G-Star jeans. “As well as being made from denim, they resemble a pair of jeans and can also be used to store your denim essentials,” said G-Star RAW. The furniture pieces were created with a new textile board material, made from recycled jeans collected in fashion brand’s stores, and produced by leading textile manufacturer Kvadrat Really.

Green design or mass consumerism? Instead of pretending to save the world or solve Hamletic questions, Baas and G-Star RAW decided to highlight the duality of the topic, “especially for an event like Milan Design Week and an industry that encourages consumption,” concludes the designer.

The exhibition is set within the grandiose surroundings of the 16th-century Church of San Paolo Converso [Piazza Sant’Eufemia 1, Milan – Free entrance].

All images: courtesy of Maarten Baas.