Heron Preston Rethinks Garbage Collector Uniforms for New Collection

Kanye West collaborator Heron Preston designed trash collector uniforms for New York Fashion Week.

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Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

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Heron Preston, one of the founders of #Been Trill# and a frequent Kanye West collaborator, is presenting a collection with an interesting origin story at the upcoming NYFW. Preston was swimming in the Mediterranean, naturally, when he got mixed up with a trash bag and came up with the idea to create clothing out of old garbage collector uniforms, according to the New York Post. 

Preston will reuse the former uniforms to create clothing using patches of the neon green and orange uniforms next to screen-printed graphics. He's not in this fight alone, though. Preston partnered with the New York City Department of Sanitation (DSNY), a first for a designer, to create the collection entitled "Uniform." 

The show will benefit the DSNY and its 0X30 initiative, which hopes to eradicate landfill waste by 2030, according to The Cut. The collection also hopes to honor those that help keep the city clean, "who are often invisible to the 8.5 million people they serve," a spokesperson for DSNY told the PostThe Cut also reports that while Preston is just the first, this is the start of an ongoing series. 

25 tickets to the event will be sold for the hefty price of $2,030 each. Rest assured that money will go to a good place, though. DSNY will put the money towards a foundation for New York's garbage workers and an "educational museum" full of artifacts and old equipment that goes all the way back to the 1800s. 

Preston will house the show at the Department of Sanitation’s Salt Shed at Spring Street in New York on Sept. 7. 

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