This practice moved into the mainstream during the Covid-19 pandemic, in response to the climate emergency, and to try to reduce the fashion industry’s impact on the environment.
Dead stock, fabric scraps, waste from the food industry, electronic waste, and even automotive components are now of great interest to the fashion industry, which is working to transform them into clothing and accessories.
The challenge is twofold: to reduce the mountains of waste that are accumulating around the world, and to reduce as much as possible the need for new resources.
Giving new life to old bath towels
As seen in recent months in the fashion sector, but also in cosmetics and jewellery, the reuse of waste is booming.
Almost all waste, objects, and used materials can nowadays constitute prime raw material for brands willing to favour circular fashion. But some have long since made this practice part of their DNA.
This is the case of Rave Review, a Stockholm-based label founded in 2017, which offers a second, much more lavish life to household linens.
The first collection of the duo of designers who helm the brand – Josephine Bergqvist and Livia Schück – is not going unnoticed, and is among the first of its kind to focus on the niche of upcycling home textiles.
The objective is simple: to create clothes only from existing materials. And the concept clearly works, as the label is one of the semi-finalists of the prestigious LVMH Prize.
From towels and throws to tablecloths, blankets, sheets or even curtains, here everything is transformed into luxury clothing.
Such has been its success that the brand is gradually expanding its pool of pre-existing raw materials and now reuses anything that can be easily turned into clothing, such as fabric scrap and dead stock.
The label even partnered with automaker Škoda in late 2022 to create clothing from used car parts, including seats and seatbelts, and even more recently created a collection for Gucci as part of the ‘Gucci Continuum’ project.
A booming field
Since the pandemic, the practice of upcycling has become more widespread in the fashion industry, as in many other sectors, with the emergence of new businesses committed to a more sustainable – and circular – approach to fashion.
The Belgian label Valalab also entered the niche of transforming linens into clothing, as did Les Récupérables, among the pioneers in France, which was forced to close its doors in the fall of 2022, not to mention the participative design workshop, Patchworkers.
Long before the pandemic, Alexandra Hartmann, who lives between Paris and Copenhagen, decided to focus on fine and antique fabrics through her brand Hotel Vetements.
From antique curtains and tapestries to upholstery, handmade embroidery, sheets, tablecloths and other household linen, here, fabrics sometimes dating back several centuries are transformed into clothes by hand. An initiative once again aimed at driving down waste and overproduction.