Maharishi’s Upcycled program celebrates it’s 20th anniversary with a capsule collection which recycles Indian paratrooper uniforms and cloth. The fabric was produced for the Indian military but was eventually rejected for having too low a carbon content, which reduced it’s protection from infra red camera’s and goggles, less than ideal for military operations but not an issue for civilians. As with all Maharishi’s recycled pieces the source garments are blessed, washed in saffron water and smudged before they are repurposed, in order to disassociate each piece from it’s negative military past, a process detailed in a short film showcasing this capsule collection. This symbolic act reflects the perennial intent behind Maharishi’s recycling program, which is to repurpose garments made by wasteful military programs and ensure that the source garments are given a new and extended life, one with a far more positive purpose and many more environmental benefits than was originally intended.
In 2007 India updated their camouflage, indirectly taking inspiration from Maharishi disruptive patterns, which always include a nomenclature within the pattern. India followed the late generations of US Army patterns which introduced the inclusion of branding and naming, which were themselves inspired by DPM. The USA have since abandoned the practice in their most recent developments.
Maharishi Upcycled Swords to Ploughshares program refers to a Biblical concept in which military weapons or technologies are converted for peaceful civilian applications:
And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And He shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. (Isaiah 2:3-4)
