Recycling Revolution Recycling Revolution

I have always been worried about the clothes that I pick up having a bad impact for the environment. The image of landfills full to the brim with £3.50 leggings and once trendy nylon jumpers that will never decompose haunts me every time I think about clicking the TikTok shop link to get a hoodie with a goose holding a knife in its mouth printed on it. I recently talked to the founder of Tanzania based Wakawear, a small and sustainable clothing company focussed on unique beachwear,about what upcycling means to herand the difference that she wants to make in the world of fashion.

Q: How did you get into upcycling?

A: Previously I didn’t know anything about upcycling. I mainly got interested when I was visiting Tanzania and visited what are called mitumba markets. Mitumba markets are basically the Swahili word for anything that comes from the global north second-hand and gets kind of distributed to markets around East Africa. I think there’s also markets in West Africa but I know less about them. So, it can mean materials, such as bedsheets, clothes, shoes, anything that someone could wear or drape, but it also includes electronics.

It’s basically a way of other countries getting rid of their stuff [...] I realised that there was, a wealth of materials, loads and loads of different things, things that you wouldn’t expect, some vintage items, some really nice fabrics and, I got the idea to combine those with African prints. So that’s how it started.

She told me about an article that she read about the movement of an average item of clothing before it gets on the shop floor. It’ll make its way through six countries, and, in some cases, it will have gone through that entire process before it gets to markets in East Africa.

Q: What led you into this form of fashion as opposed to traditional designs with new fabrics?

A: The same reason, I would say, but also the depths of fabrics is different. Not that you can’t get loads of different things new, and there’s some kind of really innovative new fabrics, like eucalyptus and bamboo that you get less in second hand markets, but what you also get is really old materials which you couldn’t get now. So, for that reason it’s quite exciting. You get to play with different textures, you get to practice a lot more because you’re not having to make multiple items of one thing, so there’s positives and negatives to that as well because unique items can only fit one person. Whereas if you’re building to scale, it’s a bit different. It’s a really

This was a surprise to me; I was completely unaware of the freedom that second hand fabrics offered, in my head you could only come across these types of materials through taking a trusty seam ripper to a charity shop skirt.

Q: You come up with some really fun and unique designs as well, do you thinkthat clothes should be a fun extension of your personality?

A: It’s interesting that you ask that because, previously, I saw clothes as quite functional. I mean, like everyone else, I enjoy trying to look the best that I can, but it wasn’t really a focus for me [...] I would say that I didn’t consider it to be an extension of self, fun or otherwise. I’d say that now I definitely think that fun should be in fashion, I think that people’s personalities should be, but it’s a very personal choice, I wouldn’t want to dictate what someone else should or would want to wear. I do think that fashion’s a really interesting art form, and it is a reflection of where we are at as a society, and fast fashion, unfortunately, is part of that.

Q: So, what do you think sets upcycled fashion aside? What would you say to people who want to get out of the cycle of buying fast fashion?

A: I, like anyone else, have purchased fast fashion in the past, I didn’t do it with much thought so I wouldn’t really have any judgement call. I’ve recently started learning to sew, previously I was just doing the designs and giving them to tailors, and it’s not rocket science [...] I would say that you should consider making your own clothes, consider creation rather than consumption, because then you can have purpose-built stuff for your own self. There are more and more resources out there that people can access, and things like social media are facilitating creativity much more than they have done previously, so it’s not a closed art that only certain people can do. You can pick up second hand sewing machines really cheaply, you can buy second hand fabrics really cheaply, you can keep the process closer to you rather than having a product that’s gone through hundreds and hundreds of hands before it reaches you. So create, if you can.

Overall, upcycling seems like, not only a more ethical and environmentally friendly method of getting clothes, but also far more expressive and fun. Grab granny’s old sewing machine and the weird sheets that you swore you would use for something and get creative.