RE-MAKE
Upcycled. Sustainable. Fashion.
From left to right: Flo, Sophia, Ella, Paige, Gracie, Reital, Duha, Imogen, Caitlin, Fifi, Kesia, Sylvie
We are RE-MAKE, a collective of young makers (13 - 17-year-olds) from South Devon working collaboratively to build a fashion accessory brand made from upcycled materials.
We spent 5 Saturdays working with 2 upcycling textile artists to create a range of scrunchies, bags and eye masks.
From product design, audience research, and brand development to logo design, production and marketing we learnt everything needed to set up and run our own creative business - we even ran our own Instagram channel.
Everything in the range was made by us including the labels, swing tags, posters and postcards.
The project
This year MAKE Southwest launched its Young Green Maker Initiative (Young GMI), a youth arm to our successful Green Maker Initiative that supports makers on their journey to becoming more sustainable in their creative practice.
The first activity to take place under the Young GMI was this fantastic project: a free course of workshops to engage young people with sustainable making and give them an insight into what it takes to launch your own creative business.
We worked with 2 amazing textiles designer-makers who specialise in upcycling, Alice (byAliceWood) and Abby (Mukta). Focussing on sustainable fashion, we worked with scrap and end of life materials / clothing, teaching the students how to work with the existing fabric and features when making them into a new design.
Throughout the course, we touched on all aspects of what it is like to start and run your own creative business, including:
Audience research
Brand and logo creation
Product development and design
Photography and storytelling
Production of product range - from prototypes to the final products quality checked
Packaging and label design and production
Marketing and promotional materials
Digital content creation
Social media management
The ultimate outcome of the course was to produce a cohesive, saleable product range to be displayed and sold in the MAKE Southwest shop. All proceeds from the sales feeding directly back into the charitable aims of MAKE Southwest as a craft education charity.
Participants were mixed ages and came from various backgrounds and schooling. They were often required to work in a large team as well as in smaller groups or pairs. When making, participants generally worked by themselves and under their own initiative.
The course took place over 5 consecutive Saturdays in April and May 2024, in the Heathfield Youth Cabins (Heathfield, Devon). Each session ran from 10am – 2.30pm at the end of a school week, which required a recognisable commitment. They were a fantastic group of hardworking and creative individuals!
The RE-MAKE product range for sale in the MAKE Southwest shop.
Even the display of the product range was determined by the RE-MAKE team. MAKE Southwest replicated it from their drawings and the photos of their display mock up.
The process
Most of these photos were taken by the RE-MAKE ‘business and marketing team’ to use on the RE-MAKE Instagram channel, this webpage and to generally document the project.
Product and design ideas
RE-MAKE headquarters for the 5 Saturdays
Creative product photoshoots
Trying out screen printing - on cotton for bag labels and card for swing price tags
Bag pockets hand painted and waiting to be added to bags
The lined inner of a bag with the screen printed cotton label sewn in
Screen printing screen
The finished swing tag labels
Using waste materials to print interesting shapes and designs
Pattern making and cutting
Testing hand painting and coming up ideas for motifs
On the sewing machine
Playing around with designs and patterns - hand painted
Various fabrics
Panel of a bag waiting to be attached
Prototypes of the swing / price labels
Bag in progress
Business and marketing team working on digital content
Testing screen printing multiple labels at once
The products
These product photos were all taken by the RE-MAKE team. Their guidance was to take a range of shots that showed multiple items in the range in full and details in close up. They were able to use a photo lightbox and also got creative with the outside surroundings.
The tutors
byAliceWood
Alice is a bag and accessories designer and maker, based in Plymouth.
She has two main collections of work. One using Italian veg tanned leather that is sustainably produced, using traditional low impact methods that don't use harmful chemicals. Alice creates a collection of simple and elegant bags and accessories in a wide variety of colours that are made to be used and loved.
Her second collection uses reclaimed, locally sourced, waste textiles, to make a broad range bags and accessories. All of the materials, are in limited amounts and this creates a collection that is constantly evolving as the materials change. Alice really enjoys working with the different qualities, colours and textures to design her new products.
Mukta
Mukta-Undone is a up-cycle fashion brand created by Abby.
It is Abby’s aim to encourage sustainable fashion making, consumption and thinking ways through workshops and fashion events within the community.
Abby runs workshops, mends clothing and creates amazing one-off garments from up-cycled materials in small-scale production.
This project would not have been made possible without the generous funding from The Naturesave Trust and The Elmgrant Trust. With materials kindly donated by Bogey Knights and sewing machines supplied by Janome.
The Naturesave Trust is funded by the activities of Naturesave Insurance, the UK’s leading ethical insurance provider for individuals, businesses, charities and community groups.