This story is a part of Picture’s November Misplaced & Discovered problem, exploring the various lives our garments and objects have, the various tales which can be nonetheless ready to be unearthed.
When Swedish model Hodakova received the LVMH prize this yr, it felt further vital. The finalists for essentially the most sought-after prize in style — awarded yearly — are supposed to foreshadow the way forward for the trade, and never since Paris-based label Marine Serre received in 2017 has a model centering reuse and upcycling taken the title. Shortly after the LVMH awards, lauded Japanese designer Junya Watanabe introduced seems that repurposed techwear, tires and foam blocks in his Summer season/Spring ’25 womenswear present at Paris Style Week. All of it feels completely different this time, like we’re lastly coming into the upcycling period.
Whereas the institution is simply beginning to adapt, there’s an entire wave of younger designers for whom this ethos has been baked into the enterprise from the very starting, reasonably than clumsily applied in a while as a consequence of (in lots of circumstances) growing strain for transparency and accountable manufacturing. The reality is, reuse has been the muse for rising designers for many years (see: cult ’90s and early-2000s New York labels like Susan Cianciolo and Imitation of Christ), providing an opportunity to take part in an in any other case unique trade. Final yr a Vogue India article’s headline learn, pointedly: “Owning a one-of-a-kind upcycled garment is the new wardrobe flex.” However perhaps it’s all the time been?
Jester wears Compost vest and bottoms, Eytys sneakers.
Sky wears Sami Miro costume, Hugo Kreit earrings, Blumarine sneakers, VidaKush anklet, mannequin’s personal necklaces.
“It’s a fascinating challenge to see how designers incorporate their own codes into the technique of upcycling,” says Religion Robinson, head of content material at International Style Agenda, a Copenhagen-based nonprofit devoted to making a net-positive style trade via analysis publications, occasions and coverage engagement. “When it comes to garment production, the storytelling side of upcycling is unmatched. Take the spoon dress from Hodakova. Where did those spoons come from? How were they collected? Why? Or Buzigahill, the Uganda-based upcycling label that makes amazing pieces but also tells the story of textile waste.”
In terms of reuse, scaling up and sourcing are points but to be solved, however rising designers are prepared and excited to get inventive to reimagine the present system — they simply want extra help. “We don’t see the process of our clothes being made, so a lot of people don’t realize that the design choices completely define the sustainability credentials of our clothes,” Robinson tells me.
Younger retailers like APOC retailer, Japan’s Season, NYC’s Tangerine and L.A.’s Maimoun give attention to unbiased and rising designers, with a rising collection of thrilling manufacturers from world wide that show the enchantment and potential of upcycling and reuse. In New York, there are manufacturers like Giovanna Flores, Everybody’s Mom, SC103, Collina Strada and La Réunion Studio. In Europe, there’s Conner Ives, Rave Assessment, Ponte, (Di)imaginative and prescient and Marine Serre. New Delhi has Rkive Metropolis and L.A. has Suay Store, Bobby Cabbagestalk and Rio Sport. Relatively than remaining segmented from style at massive, relegated to novelty or area of interest, the next manufacturers (and lots of extra) present why upcycling and reuse can, and may, be the brand new regular.
April wears Sentimiento high, Object From Nothing bottoms, Tecovas boots, Maria Tash earrings, jewellery by Spinelli Kilcollin, Emma Walton, Different Individuals’s Property.
Hodakova
2024 is the yr of Hodakova. Motivated by sustainability, Ellen Hodakova Larsson, 32, grew up on a farm an hour exterior of Stockholm, and credit her dad and mom’ ingenuity and resourcefulness as a serious inspiration for her designs. That is clear in her use of unconventional supplies like spoons, rosette prize ribbons, belts and silver plates — on a regular basis gadgets that she recontextualizes to beautiful impact in attire, skirts, and tops. Right here’s hoping that beneath Larsson’s eye, her converted-goods philosophy will snatch the trade at massive.
Ellen Poppy Hill
“I’m kind of a scavenger,” U.Okay.-based designer Ellen Poppy Hill says of her strategy to secondhand material sourcing. “I never know what I like but I really know what I don’t like. My fingertips squeal when they don’t like the fabric. It’s a bit of a magpie process.” Hill grew up in Southeast London in an eclectic and playful family with a set designer mom and an actor father. Her first assortment, “Constant State of Repair,” debuted this yr and was born from her patternless, freehand design technique. An Ellen Poppy Hill garment tells a narrative, just like the lengthy black costume lined in lifelike mice figures; the cap with stitching ephemera, buttons and toggles hooked up by pins; the upcycled costume that seems to be taped collectively on the seams; or the recycled wool blankets became bomber jackets with exaggerated zipper-shaped cutouts. Collections come from time, Hill tells me, to analysis, draw, suppose and browse. “A lot of the time it’s about listening to the fabrics first,” she says. “I’m focused on finding fabrics that tell a story about why I’m attached to them, why they make me feel a certain way.”
Jester wears Sentimiento high, FreddieFrances bottoms, Rock City Hollywood belt, Eytys sneakers, Zucca bracelet.
Hood Child
Hood Child founder Anny Saray Martinez grew up on the swap meets of L.A. “My mom was a vendor at swap meets and I would go to work with her,” Martinez tells me. “When I got older I started to frequent the other fabric vendors and purchase their leftovers from them.” Motivated by sustainability, a love for ’90s and early-2000s style and Latina pop stars like Selena, it’s no shock that Martinez has been embraced by distinguished younger pop stars like Tinashe and Tyla. Her body-conscious designs vary from female upcycled miniskirts to sporty soccer jersey reworks. “I’ve loved fashion my whole life and have definitely done the homework,” says Martinez.
Sky wears Hood Child high, Sami Miro bottoms, Ancuta Sarca sneakers.
All-In
All-In is the lifetime of the celebration. Founding duo Benjamin Barron and Bror August Vestbø initially bonded over their love of reuse, enamored with the concept that with the proper approach, you may create one thing covetable from nothing. Since presenting their first assortment in 2019, their style reveals have turn out to be a must-see, the place fashions like Colin Jones deliver the downtown-meets-uptown perspective of the model to life in redesigned attire of denim and polka dot chiffon. Charli XCX and Rihanna are additionally All-In women.
Nicklas Skovgaard
Copenhagen’s Nicklas Skovgaard discovered his technique to style design via weaving. He taught himself on a small loom, creating intricate swatches of material, earlier than increasing into ready-to-wear and formally launching his model in 2020. Usually credited as sparking an ’80s revival in style, his voluminous, one-of-a-kind celebration attire come to life via a mix of contrasting thrifted materials like denim, taffeta, chiffon, leather-based and lace. Sequins and florals additionally function closely. The potential of upcycling completely shines with Skovgaard’s powerful but elegant contact.
Jester wears Hood Child high, Object From Nothing bottoms, Vaquera hat, Kiko Kostadinov sneakers, Zucca bracelet.
April wears Sentimiento costume, Givenchy sneakers, Maria Tash earrings, jewellery by Spinelli Kilcollin, Emma Walton, Different Individuals’s Property.
Object From Nothing
Companions and founders of Object From Nothing, Meridith Shook and Jacob Schlater met on the College of Cincinnati whereas learning architectural engineering and product design, respectively. OFN got here to life after their transfer to a studio area in L.A. final yr.
“The No. 1 driver for us is dispelling the myth that reuse is just DIY or lower quality than ‘new’ fashion,” says Schlater from his studio. “When fashion content is shared on Instagram, there’s very little focus on the quality, construction and longevity of pieces. Instead, the focus is on the value of the image that you can get with a piece. It doesn’t matter how the garment actually feels to wear, it matters how it looks like it feels to wear.” Including worth to forgotten supplies and reimagining them into distinctive on a regular basis items, Shook and Schlater embrace excessive resourcefulness, incorporating all the things from steel washers they discover on the road to deer antler buttons sourced by Schlater’s mother at a storage sale in his hometown of Hillsborough, Ohio. Impressed by designers like John Alexander Skelton and Paul Harnden, OFN treats even essentially the most unassuming blue striped button-up — produced from an upcycled classic cot cowl, no much less — with the utmost consideration, reworked by their palms right into a wearable artifact.
Compost
Tomo Givhan began exploring style design in 2021 after a formative journey to Japan, the place he found conventional Japanese hand-stitching strategies like boro and sashiko. Impressed by Japanese model Kapital in addition to antiques and indigo dyeing and distressing methods, he got down to put his personal spin on these conventional strategies, leading to soulful and layered patchwork creations produced from fastidiously sourced classic supplies. “It’s kind of like painting for me,” Givhan says. “I’ve always gravitated toward vintage. I think the quality is better, the silhouettes are timeless and it’s accessible. There’s so much waste [in fashion] and I don’t want to be a part of that.” Based mostly in L.A., Givhan plans to proceed to develop the model as organically as potential, recontextualizing the historical past of outdated clothes and funneling them via the Compost lens.
Sky wears Nicklas Skovgaard costume, Hugo Kreit earrings, Margiela Tabi sneakers.
Buzigahill
In 2018, designer Bobby Kolade, armed with a masters in style design from the Academy of Arts Berlin Weissensee and expertise at each Margiela and Balenciaga, returned to his native Uganda with the objective to put money into the native style economic system. After some trial and error, Kolade started sourcing and redesigning clothes from the secondhand market in Uganda, a system that’s sustained (and burdened) by extra clothes outsourced from the International North. Handwoven baskets are adorned with fringe produced from strips minimize from multicolor T-shirts, and patchwork hoodies function the model’s signature triangle motif. “We’re sending the clothes back to where they came from,” Kolade advised Vogue Enterprise in 2022, “but we’ve imbued a Ugandan identity onto these pieces.”
Duran Lantink
One in every of Enterprise of Style’s high 10 reveals of the Spring/Summer season 2025 season, and the recipient of the 2024 Karl Lagerfeld prize issued by LVMH, Duran Lantink had an outstanding yr. The Amsterdam- and Paris-based label gives surreal and seductive style that merges three-dimensional sculpting methods with conventional handiwork, all produced from a mixture of recycled textiles, deadstock and new sustainable supplies. Lantink’s inflated silhouettes — suppose Pokémon-esque, puffy cropped bomber jackets and button-ups, and spherical skirts that appear like an inner-tube pool float — are a favourite of stylists and celebrities, showing on the covers of magazines like POP, Interview, HommeGirls and Re-Version.
Sky wears Sami Miro costume, Hugo Kreit earrings, Blumarine sneakers, VidaKush anklet, mannequin’s personal necklaces.
Les Fleurs Studio
Paris-based Les Fleurs Studio is a self-described upcycling venture by inventive director and stylist Maria Bernad. Steeped in Gothic and Renaissance-era references, Bernad’s romantic designs function virtually solely vintage lace and crochet in shades of cream and ivory, and typically black or the softest pink. Her intricate designs are very bridal-ready, and each Beyoncé and Jared Leto are followers.
Prototypes
In June of this yr, the present on everybody’s radar — together with Kanye West, who reportedly went out of his technique to attend — was Prototypes. An upcycling and repurposing venture by designers Laura Beham and Callum Pidgeon, Prototypes has a darkish, direct power in its balaclavas and black and pink coloration scheme, conjuring Balenciaga, however upcycled. “Out with the new, in with the old” is a part of their motto, and in keeping with their web site, they need to pave the way in which towards particular person expression and sustainability-focused design, with their prospects by their aspect.
Sami Miro Classic
When Picture employees author Julissa James spoke to Sami Miró again in 2021, Miró was clear about her dedication to sourcing eco-friendly materials. “There’s really no other way,” she advised James. “I don’t care if I could find the exact same fabric that’s a fourth of the price; I would still choose this.” Since then, Miró has stayed true to her values whereas making it to the CFDA/Vogue Style Fund finals, and exhibiting her first upcycled runway assortment at New York Style Week in 2023. Her self-taught and intuitive design technique stays wanted past her dwelling base of L.A., and we’ll be watching to see the place her scissors take her subsequent.
Manufacturing: Mere StudiosModels: Jester Bulnes, April Kosky, Sky Michelle Make-up: Valerie Vonprisk Hair: Jocelyn Vega Picture assistant: Saul Barrera Styling assistant: Ron Ben Picture intern: Khalil Bowens Location: Projkt LA
Romany Williams is a author, editor and stylist primarily based on Vancouver Island, Canada. Her collaborators embody SSENSE, Atmos, L.A. Occasions Picture and extra.