Have you ever worn a coat made of a parachute?

Neta Cohen, a graduate of the Industrial Design Department at the Faculty of Design at HIT, has already won three international design awards for her final project.

Neta Cohen

In a world where the word 'sustainable' is gaining momentum, the process of working on a new clothes collection is changing. If, in the past, the choice of material was solely on the needs of the garment itself, then today, the choice of the material from which the product is made is of crucial importance that can affect the entire ecosystem. Netta Cohen, a graduate of the Industrial Design Department at the Design Faculty at HIT Holon Institute of Technology, created her final project, "Coat of Many Colors," according to mainly green standards that led her to win the most prestigious design awards in the world.

Neta created a coat made of precisely the same material that paragliders are made of. "I myself am a skydiver, and I knew that I wanted to do my final project at HIT with a clear connection to the world of skydiving," says Neta. I wanted to make an off-the-shelf, unique product. I wanted to make a 'green' project whose production and use will also help someone else."

To prepare the coat, Neta collaborated with an Israeli factory for paragliders in Caesarea - 'Afko' AFCO, which provided her with the raw material used for parachutes. "I found out that the factory has a 15% depreciation, and they throw away 15,000 square meters of this special fabric from which parachutes are made daily," says Neta. After realizing that this was the material she would be working with, she began a "material research" process, during which she cut and heated. She cooled the raw material to understand what its main properties were and what products could be made from it.

Finally, Neta concluded that the material from which parachutes are made has properties very similar to the acrylic fabric from which coats are made. Under the guidance of her lecturer, Galina Arbeli, Neta's final project—Coat of Many Colors—was launched. The project is named after a Dolly Parton song of the same name that tells the true story of the coat that Parton's mother sewed from rags for her daughter, and she loved it for the simplicity and love that was in it.

Neta presented the project at the Graduates Exhibition held at HIT in July 2023, and it received significant international recognition. In the "Green Design" competition held in Dusseldorf, Germany, Cohen won the first prize in the Green Product Award category, after which she won the bronze medal at the prestigious International Design Awards 2023 competition held in Los Angeles, USA.