‘The final hour is a stifling ontology,’ reads Ancillary Equipments’ stark website. ‘To avert the catastrophes we face, we need to control growth and our own anthropocentric tendencies.’
Opaque, perhaps, but Ancillary Equipment is a brand establishing its own eco narrative and call to action. For its first campaign, the team has answered their own demands with a series of forward-reaching equipment-based products aiming to provide ‘alternative routes to markets (ARM’s)’.
Channelling a dystopian Rick Owens-esque aesthetic throughout, Ancillary Equipment’s first crowd-funded project, ‘The Kit’ contains minimalist sling bags, dry-goods transport ‘sacks’, hemp tote-packs, liquid receptacles and Ancillary branded soluble liquid labels. The collection is exclusively available on their website.
Each plant-based product in ‘The Kit’ embraces ‘the new radical’ – a creative process and perspective that environmental campaigners have been calling the fashion industry to adopt. Ancillary Equipment creates eco-wear, while encouraging the public to use alternative options to supermarkets – for example, community shops and farmers markets.
Alongside ‘The Kit’, Ancillary Equipment has matched its radical aesthetic with their own pre-Y2K inspired website platform (link below) – featuring a ‘Citizen’s Utopia Radio’, emotionally charged creative writing, current Co2 Levels and an eco-conscious manifesto calling users to hijack the climate narrative.
‘Consume responsibly. Cook and eat local food. Reduce our reliance on fossil fuel, embrace low impact means of travel. Engage in a more austere approach to personal finances. Hijack and reduce our captivation with haptic technology. Use social media in a riot-like manner, interrupt and disconnect, regain authorship. Hold truth, science and education as the guiding principles of society.’ – Ancillary. §
