Mark Harasimowicz

Clothing for Disaster Relief

Clothes are usually the wrong size, the wrong shape, the wrong fit, and very quickly become the wrong style. But most of us have many of them – probably too many.

What would happen if we didn’t have access to clothes – if the wardrobe, the high street, a click online wasn’t available – wasn’t so easy. In extreme cases, the clothes no longer existed. Disasters, whether manmade, climatic, or geological can make essential items such as clothes inaccessible, lost, or destroyed.

Current solutions mostly use a donation model that is heavily dominated by second-hand clothes. This isn’t ideal – accumulating the wrong types, inconsistent sizing, poor quality/damaged/soiled and unusable clothes.

‘Clothing for Disaster Relief’, through research, design and development of clothing and their manufacture process, endeavours to help when a situation requires basic, functional clothing that is easy to manufacture, and at speed.