Old Clothes Never Die, They Just Become Flower Pots - Yanko Design

"Most of us have a box. Or a bag, or a corner of the closet where clothes go to wait for a fate we haven't quite settled on yet. Not trash, not donation, just quietly pushed aside. The jeans that stopped fitting but once made you feel unstoppable. The sweater that pilled after three washes but somehow survived four more years. Parting with clothes is harder than it sounds."

"ByBye, a concept designed by Gyeong Wook Kim, Sooa Kim, Gayeon Kim, and Mingyeong Shin, disagrees with that approach in the most literal way possible. It's a countertop-sized machine that takes your worn and discarded garments and transforms them, through a process of grinding, compression, and heat, into flower pots. Real, usable, actually beautiful flower pots."

"The designers describe ByBye not as a disposal system but as a 'system of reform.' That language matters. When we throw clothes away, the garments disappear. When we donate, we hand off the moral weight to someone else. But ByBye asks you to stay present for the transformation and gives you something physical to show for it."

"You feed garments into the top opening, which uses a sliding rail mechanism to regulate input and automatically closes once the designated weight is reached. Inside, a shredder breaks the fabric down into fine particles. Those particles are then fed into a flower pot mold, compressed by a pressing plate, and hardened through high-temperature treatment. The whole process takes about ten minutes per piece."

Most people struggle with discarding worn clothing, keeping unwanted garments in boxes or closets rather than throwing them away or donating them. ByBye addresses this emotional gap by transforming old clothes into beautiful, functional flower pots. Designed by Gyeong Wook Kim, Sooa Kim, Gayeon Kim, and Mingyeong Shin, the countertop machine uses a shredding, compression, and high-temperature treatment process to convert fabric into pots in approximately ten minutes. The designers frame ByBye as a reform system rather than a disposal method, allowing users to remain present during transformation and receive tangible results, shifting the relationship between people and their discarded garments.

Read at Yanko Design - Modern Industrial Design News