So much in advance: Upcycling is an important trend for a sustainable future. But what exactly is upcycling?
When upcycling up and recycling "Recycling") converts waste products or (apparently) useless materials into new products. The term upcycling was coined by Reiner Pilz, who argued in his critique of recycling that what actually happens in recycling is downcycling. High-quality fabrics and materials are therefore returned to their raw state and transformed into inferior products. A well-known example is garbage bags made from recycled plastic. In addition, in many cases recycling requires a large amount of energy to return the products to their raw state. In contrast to recycling, the materials are upgraded in upcycling. This requires significantly less energy, but requires a high degree of creativity. In other words, one can also say: There are no limits to creativity.
So what is upcycled fashion? It is clothing made from old fabrics or clothing. Instead of producing new fabrics, existing textile remnants and old clothes are used here. The range of sustainable fashion is now huge. The Austrian designer, Christoph Rumpf, sews clothes from old carpets and curtains from the flea market. The Berlin label Aluc tailors exclusive shirts and blouse dresses. The fashion designer Reet Aus developed a unique system called Upmade, with which he already keeps an eye on recycling during production. For example, when cutting to size, care is taken to ensure that the leftovers can also be used sensibly. The Austrian label MILCH, founded by Cloud Priscilla Baumgartner, transforms classic men's suits and shirts into dresses, skirts and accessories. The raw material comes from the old clothes collection of the Wiener Volkshilfe and is further processed in a social cleaning and tailoring shop. Refished literally fishes for fashion and accessories. The products are made from upcycled cement sacks and fish feed sacks. Limo also makes clothing through upcycling. Production samples, discarded goods and returned goods from renowned German shirt manufacturers are turned into dresses, skirts and tops. This makes it possible to produce first-hand goods, although the products are made by upcycling.
So one or the other begs the question: How can you build a successful business out of this? It all depends on how you define success. Of course, limo should grow in order to be profitable - but it's not about high profit at any price that harms people and the environment.