5–5–5 grow the book | a system design
I took a fashion business course at college and became aware of the concept of fast fashion and hyper-consumerism. Buying and obtaining an object become increasingly easier, faster and even cheaper. I reflect on my behavior of consuming products and realized a few interesting thoughts:
- I cherish more when it comes to clothes that I found in a vintage store. If more effort is devoted to the process of getting a product, I somehow find that product more valuable.
- A lot of my friends told me that sometimes they even forgot what products they had because there were too many.
- Why do we buy things we don’t need?
- Why do I need fashion?
For 5–5–5, I want to experiment with the process of buying. Instead of making the process easier and faster. I want to make it more difficult to get one product. I came up with a systematic project titled / grow the book / to mainly target package waste.
- Imagine now we have a new material that is light, durable and efficiently biodegradable (can degrade in two days). I imagine this new material has the consistency similar to the plastic wrap.
- Imagine we have a new technology called *petri pot in which the new material can degrade readily upon exposure
Possible Pros:
- Each product can have an individual package without other kinds of extra packages.
- There’s will be no small object in a huge box.
The system:

My initial sketch including the process, the sample mini book and testings of an ideal material.



I become increasingly confused while designing this system. There are too much to talk about and ask about consumerism. The relationship between the products we buy and our identities as humans fascinates me. I have countless questions regarding the lifecycle of a product and the value of objects.
I’d like to end this story with a quote from a song called I Get Around by Tupac:
Hate to sound sleazy, but tease me, I don’t want it if it’s that easy.
