RACER JACKET

Capsule collection

PROCESS

Fabrics before scraping

Approximately 12-15 million cars reach the end of their useful life in the U.S.

A lot of these cars are scrapped and sit in the junkyards where people take parts for themselves or to sell but what happens to what does not get used? The metal gets shredded and recycled while the rest is sent to a landfill. It becomes very unsustainable really quickly and this three piece capsule collection project aims to upcycle a part of cars that gets scrapped, the car’s seat fabric.

During my process, I would visit the junkyard and look at many scrapped cars. I looked at the many different car seat fabrics there are and decided to rip off the ones that inspired me. The pictures show the interior of a 1988 Nissan Sentra I found at the junkyard. I took pieces off the seats and the door.

Hang drying

Scraping fabrics

1990 Honda Accord Interior Credit: Unknown

Rinsing fabric off

FABRIC CLEANING STEPS

STEP 1 Soak the fabric in detergent and water for 24 hours

STEP 2 Rinse the fabric

STEP 3 Scrape the foam off with a knife

STEP 4 Rinse the fabric off again

STEP 5 Wash the fabric on a delicate cycle

STEP 6 Hang dry the fabric

INSPIRATION

1986 Toyota Cressida Interior Credit: Reddit u/fakecarguy

1988 Nissan Sentra Interior Credit: Kat Arriaga

IDEATION

My collection of racer jackets is each inspired by the three cars depicted. I collected swatches from the Nissan Sentra and the Honda Accord. The Toyota Cressida was the only one I was not able to find but the interior is what inspired me to create the jackets out of automotive fabric.

For this collection, I designed three jackets from the big three of Japanese car companies, Toyota, Honda, and Nissan. I used one specific model from each company from the 80’s and 90’s to create racer jackets inspired by the make and model of the individual car.