Here’s the good news: fashion’s resale market is expected to hit $77 billion in the next five years. Now for the bad: that says nothing of the clothes that don’t make it to your favourite second-hand retailer. For every Chanel bag on Rebag or vintage Jean Paul Gaultier mesh top on TheRealReal, there are hundreds of T-shirts, jeans, socks and jackets that end up in a landfill. According to America’s Environmental Protection Agency, the United States has been producing well over 10 million tons of textile waste per year since 2018. Those numbers are staggering – almost too much to consider when approaching your seasonal wardrobe clear-out.
But for supermodel Amber Valletta and the More Or Less team, throwing out an old pair of jeans is never an option. Instead of damning Amber’s less-loved garments to a fate in the landfill, we challenged graduates of the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York to upcycle her items into new garments worthy of a catwalk superstar. Over the summer, six graduates – Papa Oppong Bediako, Karleen Eberle, Kenneth Ivey, Cristina and Margarita Ng Ng, and Clara Son – worked to turn blankets into ponchos, jeans into skirts, and leather jackets into sexy cinched corsets, proving that fashion’s new generation is ready to take on the industry’s difficult relationship with deadstock.
“Upcycling is really challenging and fun. You’ve got to be willing to reduce the garment down to its core – the material,” says Karleen Eberle, a 36-year-old FIT graduate living in San Francisco. “One of the pieces I got to upcycle was a Yohji Yamamoto wool skirt. He’s a very inspiring designer to me, so I did not want to destroy the gorgeous material. I wanted to honour and exemplify the classic Japanese craftsmanship, and still breathe new life into the garment. On the other hand, I completely deconstructed a vintage US-made leather jacket. I kept imagining the life the jacket had, what stories it could tell… Now it’s a leather bustier with a whole new story.”
For many of fashion’s most skilled upcyclers, the practice is not only practical, it’s spiritual. Chinese-Dominican sisters Cristina and Margarita Ng Ng, 31, approach the limitations of upcycling – a finite amount of resources to design from – as a way to open new creative pathways. “Sometimes limitation makes you uncomfortable, thus it forces you to explore and discover different ways of solving a solution and be creative with what you got in hand,” the sisters say. “Limitation is only in your mind.”
Outside the classroom, fashion’s most adept upcyclers face a lot of real-world pressure. Beloved brands such as By Walid, Rentrayage, Marine Serre, Conner Ives, Chopova Lowena and Collina Strada are founded on sustainable principles, using deadstock and found materials to produce their collections. While that makes for great press and innovative new designs, the sourcing and constructing of extant materials limits their production and can confuse retailers. “Sometimes buyers don’t want to pick up our collection because each piece is unique, so the item in the picture may not be the one a customer receives,” one well-established designer recently confided. Education – of both the fashion industry and the consumer – is the only way to convince both retailers and shoppers that a remixed vintage tee or an artisanally painted cargo jacket is more valuable than a newly produced item.
So look at these images of Amber Valletta transforming into different characters as lesson one of your upcycling journey. Who knows, maybe you’ll soon pick up your own scissors and turn your pillowcase into a bustier.
Papa Oppong Bediako, an FIT student who appeared in one of Prada’s mid-pandemic post-runway shows and remixed one of Amber’s vintage dresses with traditional Ghanaian kente-cloth fabric, has some words of encouragement: “I think people who don’t feel they will be good at playing a role in upcycling fashion should take the plunge and try. You will be surprised at your results and once you start, you may fall in love with the process and begin a lifelong journey of newness while still helping protect our beloved planet. Remember: there are no mistakes!”
Tailor: Aneta Velizar. Hair: Teddy Charles. Make-up: Yadim. Fashion assistant: Megan Soria
