Is there an alternative to how we consume fashion?

In the era of aggressive consumption and home deliveries in less than 24 hours, the fashion world seems to have become the mirror of a hyperactive society. A lot of fashion is created, a lot of it is consumed and even more is wasted, transforming our relationship with our wardrobe into a morbid and impersonal relationship made of impulses often motivated by the external environment. It is precisely in the folds of this social short-circuit that LOT2046 was born, the project of Vadik Marmeladov that only a few days ago announced its closure, explaining with a short text on their website that from January 1, 2022 the site and the domain will cease to exist.

Born in 2017, at the base of LOT2046 was a community idea whose principles were summed up in the words of its designer: "There is no founder, no board of directors, and no future" for what was sold as a brand with no creative directors or any interest in profit. What was LOT2046 then? A utopia probably, one that for $50 a month promised to send you home everything you needed for your daily life: tees, pants, socks, jackets and even shoes, all strictly monochromatic and with minimal branding. After each order an email would ask you for feedback on what you had just received in a package on which often appeared words like "This is between us" or "For the good death" as Kyle Chayka had told in 2018 on Ssense. Each email and each feedback contributed to customize your experience, making subsequent orders each time closer and closer to your tastes: from sizing to colors, gradually transforming the user into the creative director of his brand. In addition to apparel for a subscription of 100$ per month LOT2046 offered to send you also a series of products for personal hygiene, from toothbrush to deodorant in the full representation of a philosophy summarized in the phrase "life is full of distractions, let's eliminate one of them" as said by Chaya.

Over the years that philosophy had grown out of proportion until it collapsed on its own utopia. The latest dream, perhaps the most ambitious of all, was the ARK 1, a portable home presented as "a digital-native, futuristic, black 13 sqm caravan" part of LOT's subscription plan for $2500 per month. The minimalist philosophy of Vadik Marmeladov's project, in which the Silicon Valley mentality was combined with the idea of do-it-yourself fashion, ended up clashing with the ambition of a project based on the presumption of being able to automate a part of our lives, transforming fashion into a mechanism in which choosing what to wear was no longer our problem. If Netflix chooses what we should watch and Airbnb where we should sleep, LOT2046 wanted to choose what we should wear for an idea of participatory fashion that represented, at least in its intentions, a real alternative to the traditional fruition of the fashion system. Although fate has condemned LOT2046, the idea of a participatory fashion from below is one of the points on which to base a future revolution to change the way we live our relationship with our wardrobe.