It is not rare to find products, especially small accessories inspired by safety belts, such as Off-White's industrial belt, or incorporating repurposed car seat belts. Car parts such as safety belts are indeed often recycled to create straps for sturdy bags. After all, safety belts are usually made with high performance technical and synthetic materials, such as polyester, polyamide and polypropylene fibres that can guarantee strength, tenacity and stability.
But there are other ways to reuse car safety belts: the TextielMuseum in Tilburg, The Netherlands, offers a series of engaging and ongoing activities, from learning how to weave to discovering the art of sashiko, a Japanese repairing technique developed by the Japanese working class in the 17th century that allows to create protective patterns on the fabric, and one workshop is focused on repurposing car belts.
Rather than simply use them for straps, the museum moves from a term taken from the fashion vocabulary, "moulage", that literally means "to shape", inviting participants to this workshop to learn how to shape on a mannequin designs made with woven car safety belts. While none of us may have large quantities of safety belts to experiment at home, this is a material we may want to keep in mind in case we spot leftover stocks of safety belts online or at second hand or antiquarian markets. Looking at some of the woven dresses made with safety belts at the TextielMuseum workshop, you easily realise that this material may provide creative minds with unexpected fashionable possibilities.
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