Do you know any Upcycled or Repurposed Designers?

The hard part about sustainable fashion is it’s incredibly fragmented and often just greenwashing.

If you want to buy something new with a minimal environmental impact, your options are kind of all over the place. You have resale, which is great but inconsistent. You have “sustainable” brands, but many are still producing new materials. And then you have independent upcycling designers, but they’re scattered across Instagram, pop-ups, and small sites.

There hasn’t been a singular place where you can go and know that everything you’re looking at is made from the lowest possible impact materials: which is without a doubt using what already exists.

You all probably already know… Reusing textiles dramatically reduces resource use — I’ve seen studies showing up to ~90–98% less water usage compared to producing new fabrics, depending on the material.

I started AFTRWRD with this in mind. If you guys know of designers working with secondhand materials, I’d love to hear from them. We just launched this week and are looking for vendors to partner with. www.aftrwrd.com