These are not your garden variety clothes. While fashion trends change season to season, these garments actually grow with the seasons.

Horticouture
Fashion designer Jacob Olmedo’s Wearable Gardens are a kind of HortiCouture twist on mobile gardens–portable pockets of green one can carry with them–in this case, on their bodies. Olmedo’s garden fashion is what he calls a “kind of environmental activism” intended to call attention to climate change and mass species extinction.

Environmental Armor
Made of a hydroponic growing textile material that supports and promotes plant life, the series of three assemblages all sprout wheat grass. He considers them conceptual expressions of growth and a form of “environmental armor.”

Says Olmedo of his designs, “I ended up growing wheat grass, but I can also grow micro greens, and I would ultimately one day like to grow flowers.”

The designer addresses current environmental and political issues, hoping to inspire awareness and thoughtful change through his wearable living art. Like Olemdo’s garden garments, the environment and the future of our planet need care and attention in order to address global warming and climate change.

“We are currently in a new era, combating mass species extinction and climate change, said Olmedo about his graduate thesis showcased at the Parsons graduate fashion show in New York City. “This thesis explores the political and social implications of the environment through the eyes of a bee while also exploring the meaning and practice of guerrilla gardening. With the last intention to bring humans and the natural world together as one, this thesis is expressions (sic) of growth, change, activation, and participation.”

As a follow-up to this collection, Olmedo says he plans to produce a universal open source project to build community and inspire creativity in a “wearable interactive form of environmental activism.”

“I want to be a part of a generation where we keep questioning the traditional industry standards of cheap labor, poor material decisions, and use consumerism to create a new sustainable, ethical, and progressive future.”

This article is one of a series about Horticouture. See out Pinterest Horticouture board for more inspiration.

Photos via Jacob Olmedo.