Designer Ksenia Schnaider didn’t have sustainability on her mind when she and her husband, Anton, created the clothing brand Ksenia Schnaider in 2011. Ten years later, they are now global trendsetters in sustainable fashion.
The couple upcycles denim, a process also known as creative reuse, to transform unwanted materials into new products. They also participate in social projects, stand up for equal rights and ecology, and collaborate with other responsible brands.
Many celebrities have come around to her style, wearing upcycled demi-denims, including American model Bella Hadid and Canadian singer Celine Dion.
Re-worked clothes
About five years ago, Schnaider bought three pairs of jeans in a second-hand store to make a sample of new jeans, called demi-denims — a mixture of skinny jeans and wide shorts — and brought them to France. Her plan was to show the upcycled jeans to buyers with the intention of growing their business.
Buyers immediately fell in love with the reworked jeans. Vintage denim didn’t scare them away.
Upon returning home from France, Schnaider started to search for used jeans in local second-hand stores in Kyiv to fulfil numerous orders from abroad.
While second-hand clothing is popular in Ukraine, a pair of her jeans runs about $400, making them unaffordable for most people here. The brand has mainly taken off abroad, especially in Asia, where people like unusual clothes, she said. “There was no need to explain to them why it was so expensive,” Schnaider says.
Reworked clothing is more expensive than clothing made of new denim, because it is hand-made and takes more time to produce. Sewing each pair of jeans takes four-five hours, but most of the time is spent preparing the denim. It can take two days to unstitch, wash, buy, and cut the denim, Schnaider said.
This year, the brand’s summer collection consists mainly of patchwork and swatch jeans, shorts, vests, T-shirts, tops, pants and sweatshirts. Amid the quarantine, the company couldn’t order new fabric from abroad and instead shifted to using unused fabric pieces they had lying around their studio.
“We moved, and a lot of fabric scraps and samples had been accumulated. We put everything into the collection,” Schnaider said.
In total, the brand upcycles up to five tons of jeans per year. “If someone had told me earlier that we would be upcycling that many tons of jeans per year, I wouldn’t have believed it,” she said.
A seamstress sews a Ksenia Schnaider denim garment on June 10, 2021. (Oleg Petrasiuk)
Responsible factories
The company doesn’t only upcycle denim but also makes garments from new fabric, choosing manufacturers responsibly as well.
Schnaider says that the company would rather choose organic cotton worth $15 per meter than cheap cotton for $2 per meter.
“If we are a sustainable brand, then we have to go the whole nine yards,” she said.
For example, the company works with ISKO, a famous Turkish denim manufacturer. Schnaider says that ISKO is unusually transparent, showing the entire manufacturing process, including the polluted wastewater that comes out of dyeing the fabric. The company filters the water before pouring it into fields.
Two years ago, Schnaider announced her company’s collaboration with ISKO. The brand made its garments from ISKO organic cotton, recycled cotton and recycled polyester from plastic bottles.
Collaborations with brands
When choosing brands for collaboration, Ksenia Schnaider seeks socially responsible partners.
Recently, the brand took part in a campaign with designers Bevza and Litkovskaya for Rizni.Rivni (Different.Equal) that supports the LGBTQ+ community. Each brand designed one article of clothing and distributed 100 items around Ukraine for free.
For the campaign, Ksenia Schnaider developed a denim jacket. One can fill in an application on the website and get it for free if the applicant pledges to support equal rights for LGBTQ+ people.
Another brand, Have A Rest, asked Ksenia Schnaider to collaborate on a suitcase. Together they made a decision to make eco-friendly suitcase Holo Trip, which is made from recycled plastic bottles and the leftovers of damaged suitcases.
Eco-initiatives
The company also organizes eco-initiatives to encourage people to be more ecologically responsible. In 2019, Ksenia Schnaider launched a challenge to clean up garbage in Ukraine. According to its rules, participants had to collect a bag of garbage, take photos and exchange it for a bag of clothes and cosmetics.
“We thought there would be 50–100 people, but it turned out to be about 1,000,” Schnaider said.
A seamstress sews a Ksenia Schnaider denim article of clothing on June 10, 2021. (Oleg Petrasiuk)
Last year the company rolled out a campaign with the nonprofit organization No Waste Ukraine. Ksenia Schnaider transferred $40 from the purchase of each item from the summer 2020 collection to the organization for eco-disposal of medical masks.
She and her husband try to be environmentally conscious in their daily lives as well. They are used to recycling their garbage.
“I feel that at this point, recycling is just a part of life now,” Schnaider said.
WHERE TO BUY: Ksenia Schnaider. 24 Mykhailivskyi Alley. https://www.kseniaschnaider.com
