A jacket for the urban-gatherer. It’s multi-use jacket that can be utilized for gathering throughout the entire day and serve all his or her needs. This is a modern interpretation nomadic life. The ancient hunter-gatherer culture ruled the world until humanity moved to agricultural societies.

It’s equipped with features for every weather and environmental need: backpack pocket - to collect larger objects, knife, a place to collect small and delicate things, gloves for protection from the cold, dirt and thorns, hood that can easily becomes a scarf and magnetic-milestones which can mark your way.

The world today is ruled by consumerism and flooded with products. We walk in the street or at the mall and come home packed with bags full of products that most of which we’ll throw away in less than a year. In the meanwhile, we miss the things that are around us anyway.

The growing number of people moving into urban areas, a process started in the accumulation of hunter-gatherers into villages many thousand years ago caused a couple of things: first we grew apart from nature, our new jungle is a jungle of concrete and steel (but sometimes between the tiles we can notice that plant are still growing).

The second thing is that we live in vertical buildings, we stopped rummaging and building our houses ourself, and the result is a separation between the private and public space. We no longer feel at home anywhere we go. Nowadays, with the economic crisis and rising rent costs all over the world, we reduces our domestic space to the minimum.

In addition, we consume a lot more then we need and throw away tons of garbage, instead of just looking around us and seeing what we can do with what’s there. For a long time now we've been looking for a solution to these problems, some people are moving back to the woods, some are buying organic food in the supermarket but what’s sure is we all feel something has to change.

Learning the skill of surviving with what we have was a major motivation for this project.
I believe it’s important from a psychological, philosophical and practical point of view.
I tried to give back to the wearer of the coat, the thrill from the things he’s surrounded with, and to create another layer of connection between them by collecting from public space and using them. The Jacket is designed for urban-gatherers - people that the urban nature is their mall. From old objects that were placed on the street, to Rosemary that grows wild on traffic-islands; anything can be considered a treasure.

I imagined a scenario in which the gatherer goes out from the house wearing only the jacket, and how it becomes a multi-purpose tool for every need they’ll need along the way. in every place and time they’ll have everything they need with them. by doing so, the jacket expands the domestic territory and the feeling of being at home in a public space.

the ecological aspects are clear - we don't have to manufacture new products, new food, new clothe; we can simply gather from our environment, even (and especially) if we live in an urban one.

Aesthetically speaking, the collected things design and change the jacket , so that each jacket is unique to each gatherer and even each day.

ancient hunter-gatherer culture - For my project I’ve researched the ancient hunter-gatherer culture - I learned and read about the history of humanity when most or all food is obtained from wild plants and animals, in contrast to agricultural societies, which rely mainly on domesticated species.

modern hunter-gatherer culture - I’ve also learned a lot from an Israeli organisation called “the garden Keepers” which aim to educate to a way that brings us into balance with our environment (human, animal, plant and inanimate), in a way that suits our own time. one of the founders of the organisation is Ofer Israely, which was the student of the american naturalist, tracker, survivalist, and author. I joined one of them in the woods near Jerusalem and learned the basic skills and tools they use to survive. Moreover, In a lot of big cities today, there are individuals and communities going back to this culture but in an urban environment, I’ve went to see and interview some communities like this in Israel and learned about how, where and what you can find in the urban environment. from blogs and website dedicate to this matter I’ve learned what's going on in other cities in the world.

Uniform - I’ve looked at army uniforms to learn about smart and durable clothes and textiles. for this I went to see a private collector and expert of military uniform and learned a lot about the wisdom they were designed.

I gave my prototypes to urban gathered in Jerusalem and Tel-Aviv and ask for opinions before going into final design. after few times like this I decided that the wearer of the jacket can change it and add features according to his own needs so i’ve added some places in the jacket that are easy to assembly to.

I imagine a scenario in which our cities are falling apart. It can be a result of a boom, a natural disaster or a systemic collapse. either way they no longer function as the place that provide all our needs. and all the life skills we ernd are no longer relevant. we have to start from scratch, gether our way out. we don’t have a choice but to relearn all the skills we’ve lost and adopt them to the new environment. at first it’ll be a nightmare, a total caos. but then, a day by day it’ll become an autopay of a new culture. I imagine The Gleaners by Millet only instead of the yellow wheat there’s a grey concord.

The project has many values. It’s sustainable - because it’s making people consume less and because an apple grows on a tree doesn't need a package and shipping. it’s social, because if everyone will adapt the gathering way of life, instead of throw their thing to the garbage, they’ll put it in the street knowing someone else will enjoy them soon, and we’ll have a network of object passing from one man to another. it’s paradigm-shifting because it’s making us notice the things usually invisible to us. The project is not ignoring the modern way of life, but it’s asking it’s wearer to act a bit different in his habitat and in this way, it's also educational.