We only wear half our wardrobes. Here’s how to get excited about the rest

Customer education is another hurdle that needs to be overcome when it comes to sustainability. With upcycled fashion, it’s about “understanding that not everything will be perfect, colours may vary, things might have a small hole.”

“Just because something is made out of an old blanket [a recent project saw the brand repurpose old blankets into bags and jackets], it’s not going to be cheaper. It’s probably the opposite of that actually. Some people are really into that and just get it, while others have a hard time understanding the concept.”

Sydney-based label Nique, has a strong sustainability ethos. “Our strategy is to leave a light footprint on the earth. We’re not going to greenwash people, but we’re responsible,” says creative director Nadia Jones.

Their circularity program launched two years ago, with the aim of producing as little waste as possible. ReNique ReNew, one such project, takes clothing samples as well as damaged stock from the shop floor and upcycles them in an “elevated, avant-garde way”. Customers are also able to return their pre-loved Nique items in exchange for store credit.

“The plan was to upcycle [a garment], not to devalue it. We wanted to take something and make it even better,” says Jones.

Nique collaborates with not-for-profit Second Stitch, as well as small brands Citizen Wolf, SZN, and Gliese (504) to help facilitate their recycling initiative.

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Anthony Chesler is the CEO of Thread Together, an Australian charity that collects clothing waste from fashion labels and redistributes it to people in need. Since it was founded in 2012, Chesler says the fashion industry has become “increasingly more conscious about ethical solutions to waste.” There’s been a shift in behaviour,” he continues, “although whether that volume has decreased is questionable, as there’s still a lot of production” (the charity receives about 100,000 units of clothing each month that is then sorted and distributed).

According to the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment, and Water, Australians are the second-highest consumers of textiles per person in the world. Annually, each Australian acquires an average of 27 kilograms of clothing per year, and will send 23 kilograms to landfill.

Still, Chesler is hopeful. Indeed, Thread Together’s success is a sign that Australian brands are increasingly trying to do the right thing. Almost all the traffic [to their website] is organic, he says, and everyday they are inundated with requests from brands to partner with them.

The goal is to “keep the garment at the highest value for the longest time,” and find scalable solutions that they can then take to the industry as a model of what can be done.

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