Recycled Fashion – What Is It?

What is recycled fashion? There’s been something of a buzz happening amongst those in the know, recently, as the fashion retail world turns itself away from the old high street brand imitations of haute couture and finds itself in a brand new alleyway – where words like “ethical” and “recycled” jostle for attention. All very hip and on trend, assuredly – but does anybody actually know what it all means?

One company does. On the Saffron Winds site, the recycled trendy stuff is about as genuine as you can get – necklaces and bracelets made from recycled posters, where each bead is created by making elongated tubes of poster paper and hardening them with resin; home wares made from recycled rice and flour sacks; glass ware made from re-used beer bottles. All of this fashion, for home and body alike, is shipped in from artisan charities in Southeast Asia – where workers who would otherwise be making clothes and household items for major companies paying pitiful wages are given a fair price to turn yesterday’s rubbish into today’s high fashion.

Recycled fashion is the final stage in a movement for change that has been bubbling under the western consumer market for some time now. People have been increasingly educated about the ways in which big businesses treat their overseas employees – and, also, the ways in which westerners as a nation, or set of nations, pile money and resources into buying throwaway stuff they never use for more than a couple of years. The recycled clothes, jewellery and household wares starting to take over high street style are a reaction to both of these things.

Recycled fashion tends to be sourced from ethical places – workers co operatives and work houses for people who have been injured or disabled. And it also answers the dilemma the west has been trying to ignore for so long – how to stem the flow of waste belched out by consumer markets on an annual basis, without disrupting the flow of cash that is so vital to the continued existence of the economy. By making fashion items out of the things we throw away, and sourcing them from poor workers who are being given a better deal, the west is able to salve its conscience in two very sore spots indeed.

There’s another hook for recycled fashion to hang its hat on: because every item is made from things that have been something else before hand, no two items are the same. Each piece of recycled jewellery, clothing and house ware is completely unique. That satisfies an urge that the fashion industry has been fostering in us all for years. The whole point of fashion, according to the powers that be, is that it people want to be unique – they want a style all their own. But they also want to have what everyone else has. With recycled fashion, they can do both. Be trendy by having recycled beer glasses – and know at the same time that those particular beer glasses are the only ones like them in the world.