Clothin' in a Can

Prototype Design Sketch

Inspiration

The inspiration for Clothin' in a Can stemmed from a desire to reduce waste in the fashion apparel industry and wanting to provide people the superhero experience of blasting out outfits from small objects. Imagine Green Lantern, Iron Man, Wonder Woman, etc. Athletic wear has become more prominent in daily wear but our research showed that plastic-based workout clothing is non-biodegradable and heavily contributes to the use of petroleum. So this provided us an opportunity to revolutionize the athletic wear industry, from the clothing itself, to it's distribution channels as well.

What it does

Clothin' in a Can is compressible clothing in a can that can be sold in vending machines. If Carvana can sell cars in a vending machine, we can sell clothes right? Key Features: UV protection Minimalist Accessibility Sustainable fabric

People can buy a can containing an athletic wear item of their choice and as soon as they open it, the item will pop out ready to wear, and the can can be composted.

In our 2nd design, we have a bandana shaped into a box which contains the clothing inside, ready to wear. The bandana box itself is sewn with water soluble thread, when dipped in water will open and the customer can have a fashionable bandana to go with their clothing.

How we built it

Our Prototypes:

We used an aluminum can and fabric available to us from the hackathon. We also sewed a bag to prototype our idea for the bandana concept.

How we plan to make fine-tuned product: Clothing Material: Tencel (Lyocell): a biodegradable fabric

Heattech: Offers good thermal regulation due to its natural breathability and moisture management properties.
UV Protection: Can be treated for enhanced UV resistance.
Biodegradable: Made from wood cellulose, it is compostable and biodegradable under industrial, home, soil, and marine conditions.
Sustainability: The production process is eco-friendly, using a closed-loop system that recycles almost all the water and solvents used.

Can Material: Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA): PHA is a family of biodegradable polymers produced by various microorganisms. These materials can be produced from renewable resources and are compostable.

Challenges we ran into

We wanted to initially design the product such that the clothing can be put back inside without much effort from the user. However, figuring out the engineering to put athletic clothing back inside the can proved to be difficult.