Trash To Trend Introduces First Mass Produced ‘Upcycled’ Clothing Line
Trash to Trend is introducing the world’s first mass produced “upcycled” clothing line, a substantial milestone for eco-conscious fashion connoisseurs.
Trash to Trend’s Upcycled Collection is the world’s first mass production of upcycled clothing. Trash to Trend advertises that this collection features products that are made with less water, less energy, and less production waste.
Upcycling is a means of recycling textile waste to create a product of higher quality. Fabric waste is not as dirty as it sounds. It refers to the byproducts of clothing design and production such as fabric swatches and fabric left over at the end of a roll.
Trash to Trend’s Upcycled Collection was designed by Reet Aus, a fashion, theatre, and film designer who completed her doctoral studies at the Estonian Academy of Arts. While there, she wrote a thesis proposing a “Trash to Trend” model allowing fashion designers to create clothing from pre- and post-consumer fabrics. Her intention was to lessen the damage done to the environment while still mass producing clothing.
“Together with my research team I’m now glad to present the brand as the first industrial upcycler in the world,” Aus says on her website. “We now know that upcycling can radically reduce the environmental impacts of global textile industry.”
According to Ecouterre, Aus targets her model at independent designers who want a sustainable solution to their textile-waste problem. Aus’s model includes a database that provides a real-time overview of how much textile waste is being produced in a specific region. She also suggests a web-based framework allowing for communication between waste producers, designers, and clients. The goal is to increase transparency.
The website for Trash to Trend’s Upcycled Collection provides transparency on a smaller scale by not only displaying each garment’s price but its designer, the location that provided the fabric waste used to make the garment, and the location of the manufacturer.
