Treebark trenchcoat
February – July 2009

A garment existing of two items. A robust, rough trenchcoat and a soft, but masculine vest are processed together. Because of this the customer can change his appearance according to his needs at that moment with only one garment. The materials Refinity chose to use are Barkcloth (Treebark from the Mutuba tree) and linen. The coat closes with a click/fold system. Refinity and Gary Symor chose a dark colour, it takes longer for this to look dirty and because of this the customer can wash the garment less often and less hot.

Approach
Refinity chose a fabric that does not fray, so that the click/fold system can be used to close the garment. For this Refinity was thinking about leather, but this is often tanned with harmful chemicals and these evaporates from the fabric. Refinity then came with the idea to use treebark fabric, which has many advantages; it grows in a multi culture, the bark is removed from the tree without damaging it and for the boiling solar energy is used. Growing trees also offers jobs to the people in Uganda. The organisation also trains farmers. The only downside of the material is that transport is not environment friendly yet. The company is working on this. We also worked with linen. We were looking for a soft fabric and preferred this material above bamboo and organic cotton because it is locally produced (Germany) and because of that it needs less transport. ​

Designer Gary Symor, Photography Savale, Model Edwin Verstraeten