The new frontier of hi-tech upcycling in Milan

A few days ago, D-House – Laboratorio Urbano opened in Milan, a new fashion hub in the Cimitero Monumentale area that was created to offer the main fashion brands the opportunity to transform and re-intervene on unsold stocks to give it new life. The project was born from Dyloan, a company from Chieti that for 30 years has been at the forefront of the most modern technologies applicable to fashion such as 3D printing, laser cuts, thermal sealing. The project was born from the idea of Loreto di Rienzo, Director of D-house, and Stefano Micelli, Professor of Economics and Business Management at Ca'Foscari University of Venice with designer and activist Marina Spadafora as sustainability advisor. Here's how Spadafora explained the upcycling process:

«The idea is to talk to brands, understand what kind of warehouse problem they have, and work with their creatives to understand how to apply technologies creatively. One of the best technologies is shaping, which has been used for example with Balenciaga [...] The sustainability of the project consists in the recovery of the stock and then, where possible, recover fabrics and waste to understand how it is possible to reuse them. I would like to take everything to the next level, where there will be no need to use plastic anymore».

Thanks to D-house technologies and the collaboration of fashion designers, interior designers, artists and creatives, the company offers four different types of customization and, thanks to the graphic team, the D-refashion lab project offers the possibility to see, in digital preview, all the different possibilities. The union of technical methodologies of D-House thus allows to avoid waste and create conscious production chains, both mixing technology and craftsmanship, and suggesting more innovative and sustainable consumption models. Another strength of the new hub is to host within it the partners of the technology manufacturers, thus creating synergies between the needs of the brands themselves and the r departments for the creation of new and more efficient techniques. As Marina Spadafora called it «an ever-ongoing processo of research & developement». 

The creative hub function creates a real "open laboratory". In an anecdote that Spadafora tells, for example, it has been tried to use sustainable materials in the work of 3D printing instead of traditional plastic: «Plant-based polymers are being developed and the idea is to move towards these types of materials». In one case a series of t-shirts was reworked through a series of graphic interventions, then varied by different creatives on different materials; in another the taping was used by the designer Tiziano Guardini to create a "mosaic" garment starting from fragments of knitwear.

Finally, D-House is also equipped with an academy dedicated to courses and lectures, conferences and artistic residences that incorporates the sustainability of the project into its own architecture for example using sound-absorbing panels made from dried mycelium. With the passage of time to the structure will also be added a "roommate" restaurant of D-House that will also bring the lifestyle, in addition to technology, in the location and will add to the Milanese fashion scene a new and indispensable piece.