Zsuzsanna Kilian
I'm looking forward to this text-based live chat that's happening at 12pm GMT (that's 8pm Singapore time) on the The Guardian. A panel of experts, including Orsola de Castro of From Somewhere, will explore the emerging trends and talents in upcycling. The questions that will be explored include:
• What are the possibilities and challenges of taking upcycling mainstream?
• Which designers are leading the way?
• How to build a business on upcycling?
• What opportunities does upcycling present for collaboration across sectors?
• How can citizens be empowered to take fashion back and do their own upcycling?
I wonder whether business models based on upcycling are sustainable, especially when it might be difficult to sustain a good supply of quality old garments (particularly in today's era of fast fashion)? If waste textiles were to be sourced, it would mean relying on a textile factory that supplies the fast fashion industry. This is a bit of a conundrum.
A year or two back I watched a prog on tv about charity shops selling their 'rags' to rag collectors. It showed one place in west yorkshire which sorted the fabrics, shoes , bags etc into piles basically.
ReplyDeleteWool items in a sperate pile, cotton in another, man made in another that kind of seperation.
Some fabrics were bagged up straight away, garments that were torn I think. These appeared to be bought by industries who make mops or who shred fabrics as a form of uphosltery stuffing for example, although it made me wonder how fire proof theyd be!
Then there were the folks, mainly asian or african it appeared who came and pulled garments out pretty much individually but bought HUGE quantities.
One chap explained he filled a container and shipped it to africa where members of his family would sell the items in the markets for whatever they felt they could get.
It was incredibly profitable for him to this and although he was an entrepeneur in his own way, it belied the fact that garments donated for charitable funds were in fact being sold at profits that were by passing the charities themselves!
The rag trade paid about £150 a ton weight to the charities but after that the ton could actually provide ENORMOUS amounts of profit for the rag trade itself and these chaps who buy and sell on.
It was quite an eye opener. Id have hoped my donated tee shirt, if it were not sold on in the Uk might be sent out to the countries who needed clothing and have been given out for free! Maybe thats naieve of me lol
However, it would be a great source of tee shirts for making rag rugs on a small commercial basis maybe!
I also recall seeing an article ona Uk firm who gather in wool garmets and cut them up and then patchwork the various pices together into what were really delightful 3/4 length cardigan come coats. All the welts, frills, pockets, plackets etc were used as embellishment and theywere a riot of colour and sold for about £150 + but they were stunning to look at.
They might also have sourced from scandinavian countries I think, because the mix of garments had a great deal of fair isle in them and I wondered at the time if they had contacts across europe for sourcing.
Ive noticed myself that wool garments are less frequently found in opportunity shops here now and are also higher priced than they used to be too. I suppose the felting rrevival as a hobby and the many many magazines now with how to do this and that with an old jumper, has provided charity shops with a little extra profit!
Can I just also say, writing a comment is really difficult on here, as on the left side of and over lapping the comment box there are Tweet/FB and Pin It boxes lol - but I persevered lol Hope you enjoy the event!
Lyn
Thanks, Lyn. I really appreciate your comments. Not sure what's happening with the left side banner. Will have to get it sorted. But, what you mentioned about the donations being sold for profit doesn't make sense. So what we thought was being donated for charitable use, was actually being sold to developing nations instead of being donated. What is this world coming to!
DeleteWe have explored what we like to call the bowels of fashion ... basically following denim straight through the entire life cycle. On an experiment we purchased 4 bales of denim from a industrial rags company who actually shipped their denim to Africa. When we broke into the bales and sorted the jeans there was a decent amount whole jeans in the bunch; however, out of one bale (1200 lbs or so) about 800 lbs were worthless. We send these things over to Africa and while yest the do get the decent amount of ok jeans they are also stuck with the other 800 lbs (per bale) of not wear able denim. Not sure what they do with the other 800 lbs but seems to me like we are sending over a whole lot of junk with the clothing that has been sifted through the US. Any thoughts?
ReplyDeleteThanks, Clayton. it seems like everyone is sending out their waste to the developing nations, and it tells a great deal about what we are like! When you mean not wear able denim, do you mean the denim is too tatty to wear, or the Africans do not like the style? I read (can't remember where) that we send over too many skinny and low-rise jeans, which they do not find appealing.
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