It's 2021. The world is battling a pandemic, and yet billions are spent on bombs and bullets rather than the protection of human rights and the curbing of climate change. FRIEDEN S/S21 comments on this issue with an entirely upcycled collection. Discarded army surplus is symbolically disarmed from its former military purposes and redeployed with messages of peace: Berets become bags. Uniforms now celebrate differences. And camouflage patterns no longer serve to hide, but to stand out.

Each piece of the collection carries a history of its own, one we can only guess. One of violence? Of separation? Of needless spending? FRIEDEN S/S22 raises this question and seeks to open a dialogue about why we continuously favor power over peace.

The collection is presented alongside a campaign that imagines soldiers at war with their inner disunity, tasked with killing but yearning for love. Referencing a number of earlier works such as the film 'Beau Travail' by Claire Denis, the Nobel Peace Prize winning book 'Lay Down Your Arms' by Bertha von Suttner as well as the song 'Soldier of Love' by Arthur Alexander – later popularized by The Beatles cover –, this campaign is a call for global disarmament.