Michael Stars is a company with decades of experience and clothing that lasts a lifetime, using quality materials and timeless designs. Decidedly NOT fast fashion, there is deep rooted commitment to social justice, environmental justice and community building. Because they do over 70% of garment production in Los Angeles (to ensure quality production and fair wages), we are able to partner up to tackle directly the fabric scraps from production.  

Our collaboration takes aim at a challenging and plentiful waste textile: fabric scraps, which have inconsistent sizes and compositions, making these materials extremely difficult to save. This project uses art and design as a tool to elevate these obsolete materials in a way that prioritizes reuse over recycling, downcycling, or landfilling.

Our partner, Michael Stars, accumulates about 80 lbs/month of small scraps ranging from 4” to 12” during the dyeing process that will be transformed into thoughtfully designed upcycled quilts, adding value back to otherwise obsolete materials. Our dedication to design means that the upcycled blankets will be beautiful and functional, despite being made from scraps. We will also be testing feedstock for the start of an ongoing partnership to save these materials, as well as creating templates for streamlining production on how to upcycle at scale.

Rewilder is an LA-based, women-owned sustainable design company founded in 2014 to divert and upcycle post-industrial, non-recyclable materials from the landfill, giving them a second life. As part of Incubation Cohort 3 at the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator, we want to prove that it’s possible to divert materials like fabric scraps from the landfill, reintroduce them into the circular economy, and create value while doing it. In addition to our own research and development on upcycling discarded finished goods like t-shirts, denim and now fabric scraps, we partner with large companies to upcycle from their own waste stream, and have multiple successful, inspiring projects transforming trash to fashion. We use design to fight overconsumption and mindless materialism by flipping the way we make what we wear by starting from waste materials only.

We explore a bespoke process which takes a team of skilled artists and craftspeople to execute. This design exploration aims to teach people how to appreciate the beauty in preservation: of materials, the Earth, its resources.