Up-cycled Clothing
Recycling products that we use in our daily lives is a good way to tackle the environmental challenges posed by the rapid depletion of natural resources. Scientists and environmentalists, however, have recently created a new way to reuse one of the products we use every day, and conserve the precious resources that go into their production.
They’ve come up with something called upcycled clothing. Upcycling is a form of recycling that involves creating fashionable new clothes from old and worn out clothing materials. This belongs to a relatively new domain of fashion and style called Ethical and Sustainable Fashion.
There’s a difference between the processes of upcycling and recycling. In recycling, old and used clothes that are reshaped and reused or given away to the needy. Upcycling however, is a new aesthetically pleasing way of looking at clothing waste, using creativity and style to make new clothes out of old and worn out articles of clothing.
There are some great benefits to upcycling clothes. For instance, the manufacturing process of upcycled clothing requires less cloth waste materials so more clothes can be made with little input. This reduces the environmental impact of carbon emissions and waste water generation, that happens as a result of the traditional clothes manufacturing processes.
This process also reduces consumption of natural resources such as water, raw materials like cotton or synthetic fiber, fuel, and more. As the old clothing would have been discarded anyway, it also saves tons of reusable clothing material from ending up in the landfill.
Beyond Retro is just one of the brands known for upcycled clothing products. They search and select timeless vintage articles of clothing to be sold in the market. The vintage clothes that don’t make it to the market are creatively utilized to produce new and fashionable products, made entirely out of second hand clothes.
Upcycled clothing is an ingenious and timely innovation that has created a unique trend in fashion that should be encouraged and used the world over, in an attempt to lessen the burden of environmental degradation faced by the planet we call home.