LONDON — Having witnessed the amount of waste that fashion has spawned over the years, many up-and-coming designers have developed a natural instinct for upcycling, looking to charity shops, landfills — and even the natural world — to source materials for their collections.
Among them are Kevin Germanier, whose glamorous, sequined creations are made using beads found in Hong Kong landfills; Conner Ives, who produced two successful capsules for Browns by sourcing vintage T-shirts at charity shops; Ingy Stockholm whose oversize earrings are made out of dead wood; and Hôtel Vetements, which turns old hotel fabrics into garments.
Still a nascent concept in design circles, upcyling can prevent designers from scaling their collections and keeping up with the production demands of major retailers, resigning them to forever be niche labels.
Sourcing itself is one of the first major obstacles, but these young designers are seeing opportunity in limitations, too.
Hôtel Vetements designer Alexandra Hartman started her business by calling Parisian hotels and asking for their old fabrics. But finding the right ones took a lot of time and effort. “The hardest part is the sourcing. My requests weren’t always very well received and it takes time to find the diamonds in the rubble. Luckily,
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