Clothing 'transplants' raise awareness of an important issue in Japan

Dentsu has released a follow-up to last year’s ‘Second Life Toys’ initiative to raise awareness of organ donation in Japan: ‘Second Life Fashion’. It marks the 20th anniversary of the establishment of the Organ Transplant Act, a law to facilitate organ donation in Japan.

The project was developed by Akira Suzuki and Togo Kida, the creative directors behind the original ‘Second Life Toys’ concept. Where ‘Second Life Toys’ aimed to promote transplants for children, the new campaign is more adult-oriented. The premise is similar, however: to encourage open discussion about a topic few are familiar or comfortable with.

Via Sogo Seibu, a department store, customers can donate and repair clothes with the help of a ‘transplant’ service: for example, a shirt may receive a new lease of life, and new character, with a sleeve from another item of clothing.

Customers are not required to pay for the service, but assuming they are satisfied with it, they are asked to donate whatever they see as a reasonable amount to charity. Sogo Seibu will pass donations to the Green Ribbon Campaign, a charity that supports the cause of organ transplants.

According to Dentsu, 14,000 people are waiting for transplants in Japan, but just 2 percent actually manage to go ahead with an operation.

Campaign's view: The new installment is a sensible progression for this campaign and, as before, one that is both useful and striking. It's important to keep the momentum going when trying to raise awareness of this sort of issue, so we would ideally like to see these services continue indefinitely rather than for a fixed period. At any rate, we hope to see more variations on this theme in the future.

Kida and Suzuki also worked on a recent initiative for Yahoo to enable the visually challenged to access electoral information more easily.