Mandy Pattullo

Many Pattullo is a textiles artist from Northumberland, her wonderful portfolio which is great for seeing different textile techniques, also has some wonderful garments that Mandy has created from upcycling garments and old quilts making them rich and wonderful visually.

Katwise

The runaway upcycling of Kat O'Sullivan who's shop katwise is the most successful clothing shop on Etsy. Kat uses approximately 20 sweaters to assemble her full skirted coats. She has been upcycling sweaters to make hoodies and fingerless gloves for over 20 years. It is interesting to see the evolution of her work even in the 4-5 year history of her etsy shop by going back through her sold items.

Goma

Spanish designer Ainhoa Salgueiro has created Goma a sustainably stylish brand that repurposes spent inner tubes from tyres. Each Goma piece comes with a unique tread, shaped by a lifetime of experiences in the streets, like your finger print, no two treads are the same, each GOMA bag it is as unique as you. "Sustainably stylish reincarnated rubber" genius.

Denim, denim, dreams . . .

Portfolio building within the NC is currently considering denim and recycling/upcycling sack fulls of denim clothing.
This provides many challenges, practical and intellectual and certainly provides lots of fun. Here are some images of group ones explorations.
Next week if they do not overcome me with bleach and vinegar fumes (or break my sewing machine) I will share some of group two's work.

Maison Martin Margiela

Upcycled denim from Maison Martin Margiela.

Ropa Exodo

A workshop facilitated by the artist Rustha Luna Pozzi-Escot, in Bordeaux resulted in this collaborative piece upcycling denim. Rustha is an incredible artist who has produced some amazing works dealing with identity. (Thanks)

Sow's Ear

Marion of the Sow's Ear Studio is an amazing self taught fashion designer, who upcycles old kilts jumpers, scarves and tablecloths into amazing clothing items. A dynamo of creativity who came to fashion through an awareness of the toxicity of the modern fashion industry.
The quality of the vintage fabrics upcycled is key to this designer as is the whole process of transformation. A beautiful fabric formed into an 'unfortunate piece of clothing' can be given a whole new existence in Marions studio.
" I make clothes because I could never find anything I felt like myself in or that fitted me. I love vintage pieces but they don't seem to work on modern bodies. Working on the premise that everyone wants to feel attractive in what they wear and true style comes from feeling comfortable in your threads, i favour bias cutting which affords free movement. With an innate aversion to man made fibres I use silk, wool, cashmere, mohair and linen, deconstructing vintage and pre-owned garments, curtains, bedspreads etc, to free up beautiful materials which have been locked away in deeply unflattering styles. Working directly on a mannequin I build a new dress/sweater/coat which is informed by any interesting features from the original donor garment (maybe keeping a pocket or patch of embroidery) but which has a unique new identity. My clothing must be flattering, comfortable (no tight waistbands reminding one of how many biscuits . . . Sow's Ear on Etsy

schmidttakahashi

Schmidtakashi's collections are created from donated clothing, that is treated with 'intensive care'. Laundered, broken into constituent elements and then reassembled into newly designed garments, beautifully constructed into a cohesive collection. To follow the story of the clothing from previous owner through all its incarnations with new owners the items all have a QR code. Scanning the QR code with a smart phone allows the owner to see the garments history and contribute to the story of the garment.

Enlightened Platypus

Enlightened Platypus (Lisa Marie) makes these incredible coats from upcycled sweaters. (thanks)

Jeffrey Wang

Jeffery Wang's project PERSONA uses recycled denim jeans to create new fashion/art forms. "I think it was very important that we kept the 'raw' personality of denim jeans and applying it like sculpture so there was no cutting, sewing or any use of fashion technical skills. . . even if we took it apart all the jeans still hold there original shape and can still be worn. a true recyclable project." Jeffery Wang.

Muy Marcottage III

Some examples of the Muy Marcottage fashion line.

Muy Marcottage II

Reworked textiles being made into newly designed fashions from Muy Marcottage.

Muy Marcottage I

"Muy Marcottage is a French term used for plant propagation-taking one plant to make another. But it's also an art term used to indicate a sculptural composition that's been made using pre-existing elements. In other words, disassembling one thing to create another." Cynthia Korzekwa

Very reconstructed or 'Muy Marcottage' is a line of reconstructed clothes by Italian artist/ designer Cynthia Korzekwa who is also the power house behind the wonderful housewife spindler blog. I love these working thoughts and designs.

Gibbous Fashions

Bold, exciting, experimental upcycled fashion's restructured with revealed linings, stitches, over working, layering and patching from the wonderful Gibbous Fashions.

"Gibbous was born of necessity, in a world ever growing more one size fits all, we are cultivating garments as individual as their wearer and distilling them with all the left behind beauty of the past, present and future." Gibbous Fashions