Photo Credit: Ellen Wulfhorst / Thomson Reuters Foundation
Society USAPants from Garbage? Shirts from Leftovers? Designer Turns Waste into Fashion
A Brooklyn-based designer in New York, USA creates his unisex clothing using upcycled fabric: he uses, reuses and recycles every piece he can of leftover cloth, in a zero-waste mission to sustainable fashion.
According to the New Standard Institute, around three-fifths of all clothing currently ends up in incinerators or landfills.
“It’s about looking at things from a different perspective,” explains Daniel Silverstein, founder of the fashion company Zero Waste Daniel. “You only see trash if you choose to. I am able to look at these little scraps every day and say, ‘You’re going to leave here as something beautiful and not in a garbage bag,’ and that feels really good.”
Silverstein, 31, usually uses fabric from FabScrap, a nonprofit where clothes makers donate leftover yarn, buttons, samples and so on that they no longer need. He creates pants, shirts and other clothing. “I don’t think of sustainability as a filter or a lens,” he explains. “For me, it’s the mission of zero waste and inspiring a generation of designers to follow suit and make better choices with their design and solve problems with their design.”