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The rise of upcycled fashion is a force to be reckoned with this year

07.01.2021

By BURO London

The rise of upcycled fashion is a force to be reckoned with this year

Be honest: this year, how many times have you reached for the ‘going out-out’ clothes in your wardrobe? Exactly. Thought so. There hasn’t been much call for extravagant clothes shopping in 2020, a year most of us have spent inside, in pyjamas. Despite some anomalies (Pretty Little Thing selling their products for just pennies on Black Friday, for example) fast- fashion has experienced a much-needed slowdown this year.

The appeal of ‘wear once, throw away’ dresses has waned now that Friday nights out are, by and large, off the cards. In the early months of the pandemic, retailers around the world shifted their manufacturing to focus on repurposing deadstock fabric: Sandro made masks out of material from previous collections, while Burberry made hospital gowns for the NHS. It should perhaps come as no surprise that, in the wake of the crisis, many designers are carrying this pivot forwards and creating entire upcycled collections.

 

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A post shared by Lacoste (@lacoste)

Lacoste have recently unveiled their SS21 capsule collection, made using deadstock and vintage materials. The brand’s classic products have been reworked in a patchwork style to create whole new designs—polo shirts have become joggers, while nylon windbreakers have been reborn as tennis shorts.

 

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Pinko, meanwhile, have teamed up with British designer Patrick McDowell to find fresh new ways to recycle the brand’s archive. Using discarded pieces from past collections, McDowell has created a capsule collection of jeans, sequinned blouses, blazers and jewelled capes. Each garment has taken between six and 12 hours to deconstruct and remake, with around 1,000 metres of fabric repurposed and saved.

 

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At Bite Studios, founded in 2016 and now stocked by Selfridges and Net-A-Porter, sustainability has always been the focus: think organic wool blazers, cotton trenches and skirts made from recycled ocean waste plastic. They’ve decided to rework their PF20 and AW20 collections in SS21, which will sell until May next year, giving the designs the longevity they deserve and committing to a slower production pace. At Bite, 95 percent of the luxury materials used are organic, recycled or low impact. There’s even a buy-back scheme, where customers can sell clothes back to the brand for 20 percent of their original value, so they can be repurposed in new collections.

Meanwhile, British designer Bianca Saunders has partnered with <strong

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