Heron Preston’s Mercedes-Benz assortment just isn’t what we have been anticipating

Since Heron Preston debuted his namesake label at Paris Vogue Week in 2017, he has made collaborative initiatives intrinsic to his model’s DNA. Whereas a few of these hook-ups aren’t precisely groundbreaking (Levi’s, Caterpillar, Nike and Ugg), a handful of 38-year-old Preston’s ventures have been completely sudden. 

In 2019 Preston and HP unveiled a collaborative assortment, which took the type of compostable pouches and plastic-free printers. In 2018 he partnered with NASA to rejoice the area company’s sixtieth anniversary – space-age tracksuits got here printed with the Worm typography utilized by NASA between 1976 and 1992. In the meantime in 2016 he labored with the New York Division of Sanitation.

Now he has shifted gear and his subsequent collaboration is a first-of-its-kind with Stuttgart-based automotive big Mercedes-Benz. Preston and Mercedes are celebrating the fiftieth
anniversary – and the fortieth anniversary of its use in Mercedes-Benz passenger automobiles – of the standard airbag. Airbags have been first launched by Ford in October 1971 as a substitute for seat belts, due to an adversarial response to seatbelt use in America, but they weren't put into manufacturing. In 1981 Mercedes-Benz launched them on its flagship S-Class mannequin, turning into the primary producer to patent them, and right this moment the inclusion of these airbags in vehicles is a world authorized requirement. 

Preston and Benz’s venture sits inside the designer’s personal Re-design programme, whereby he creates one-of-a-kind items from re-used supplies. A jacket, which expands and deflates as an airbag does, a skirt, workwear trousers and a cape with a drawstring hood have every been made by piecing collectively upcycled nylon air baggage, which might in any other case go to waste.

Talking solely to GQ Preston, who has additionally collaborated with Calvin Klein, stated, “Not solely is that this a sustainable venture, but it surely’s one which highlights the missed and the unfamiliar. I designed these inflatable items as a result of for me these life-saving airbags, which are sometimes simply ignored, want celebrating. An enormous a part of my model is to shine a lightweight on issues which are overshadowed, whether or not that’s the DSNY or passenger-seat airbags.

“Folks get of their automobiles and simply take into consideration their vacation spot. They don’t take into consideration what’s defending them. I’ve taken that on a regular basis object and celebrated it, in flip championing the individuals behind it.”

Whereas the aforementioned items that Preston has created are merely conceptual and subsequently received’t be that can be purchased, the American designer has additionally created a backpack utilizing leftover air baggage. This carries Mercedes-Benz and Heron Preston logos, Preston’s signature satsuma detailing and can be out there to bid for by way of public sale at streetwear-centric platform Goat from 10 September. 

Up subsequent? Don’t be stunned if a collab with the USPS is on the playing cards.

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