MATERIAL STUDIES 02 – WATER

Cleaning something is also a way of ageing it.

Our first Material Study was an experiment.

We left an apron outside in the Berlin summer and watched sunlight alter its colour. The conditions were deliberately unusual. We wanted to accelerate something that would normally happen slowly.

For our second study, we didn't have to do anything.

We simply looked at an apron that has already been part of our everyday life for more than a year.

It has been worn, stained, washed and worn again. Usually, it goes into the washing machine at least once a week.

More than fifty washes later, it no longer looks like the apron we originally made.

And that is precisely what we wanted to look at.

WATER

Washing is usually understood as a way of returning something to its original state.

Remove the evidence of use. Start again.

Materials don't quite work that way.

Every wash cleans the apron, but every wash also changes it.

Water enters the cotton fibres. Detergent removes dirt, but inevitably affects colour over time. Movement creates friction. The fabric contracts, relaxes and softens. Edges and seams begin to behave differently from large uninterrupted areas of canvas.

None of these changes happened during one dramatic wash.

They accumulated.

One wash. Then another. Then another.

Week after week for more than a year.

MORE THAN FIFTY TIMES

When we developed the GR01, we chose a heavy cotton canvas partly because we were interested in what would happen after the stiffness of new fabric disappeared.

A new apron tells us surprisingly little.

After more than fifty washes, this one tells us considerably more.

The canvas is softer. The original colour has changed. The surface is less uniform. Areas exposed to repeated friction have developed differently from areas protected by pockets, seams and folds.

It has become easier to wear.

And harder to mistake for anyone else's.

There is no single moment when this happened.

That may be the most interesting part.

CLEANING IS ALSO AGEING

We often think of patina as something created by dirt, sunlight, scratches and work.

But care leaves traces too.

Washing. Drying. Folding. Repairing.

The rituals we use to preserve an object inevitably become part of its appearance.

Cleaning something is also a way of ageing it.

That doesn't mean washing an apron as often as possible will make it better. Nor is this an instruction for artificially creating patina.

This is simply what happened to ours.

More than a year of work. More than fifty trips through the washing machine. Water, detergent, friction and time.

The stains disappeared.

The history didn't.

MADE TO SURVIVE CHANGE

Testing something isn't only about discovering the point at which it fails.

We are equally interested in what happens before that point.

Does an object remain useful as it changes?

Does the material become unpleasant or more comfortable? Do the seams hold? Do the pockets keep their shape? Does something still feel worth using once it no longer resembles the photograph on the product page?

We cannot answer those questions with a new prototype.

Time has to do some of the work for us.

This particular test wasn't planned.

We simply made an apron, started wearing it and kept washing it.

A year later, we realised we had been conducting one all along.