When buying fashionwear or accessories, shoppers in Ukraine don’t have to buy a completely new item.
For instance, when Yana Tsymbrovska, 40, wanted to buy a leather backpack, she bought a newly made one sewn together from pieces of an old leather jacket, saving money and resources.
For Tsymbrovska, 40, it was a way to balance her need for a new consumer item with her concern for the environment.
“I think that the quality of people’s lives depends on the way they use world’s resources,” she says.
Clothes and shoes are two of the main items of consumption in Ukraine. The average Ukrainian household spends every month some 14 percent or Hr 507 ($18) of every Hr 3,720 ($133) of income on purchasing clothes and shoes, according to estimates made by the State Statistics Service of Ukraine in 2016.
To reduce harm to the environment from all that consumption, many Ukrainian designers have now turned to upcycling, also known as creative reuse: They take used material and make new items from them.
Kyiv-based Remade brand is one of them, sewing bags and backpacks from old jackets. Tsymbrovska, an entrepreneur from Kharkiv, has bought two backpacks by Remade, and says she is happy not only with their quality, but also with the fact that the manufacturing process is “eco-friendly.”
“I was really amazed when I found out about the Remade’s upcycling process, as I think that it’s great to use one piece of material several times.”
Remade’s founder, Oleg Zvonarov, 29, a strong upcycling supporter, says the whole idea is based on the quality of the material used, and on how long it serves a person, but not on its age. Buying long-lasting items of good quality reduces overconsumption, Zvonarov says.
“When a person uses a backpack for 4-5 years, we’re talking about a completely different level of consumption,” he says.
Early steps
Zvonarov established Remade in 2014 together with co-founder Anna Sigorska, 31, on the shared idea that upcycling would not only help them create items of a better quality, but also help reduce overconsumption of clothes and accessories.
“The problem of overconsumption of clothes is more about people’s awareness, and it is a really big issue, as the fashion industry is one of the biggest polluters. However, this situation can be changed with the new tendency of reusing old materials,” says Zvonarov.
The brand currently produces around 60 backpacks per month, using one or two leather jackets per backpack. Remade usually gets jackets in second hand stores, and sometimes the brand’s customers donate their old clothes to the company for free.
“People give us their leather jackets so that they can be transformed into something new,” says Zvonarov. “However, the upcycling of leather is actually costly, and we try to optimize it in every possible way.”
The company sells its products to more than 30 countries, including Canada, Australia, Germany, Israel and the United States, with the average price of a Remade backpack varying from Hr 2,000 ($70) to Hr 3,000 ($105).
According to Zvonarov, some Ukrainians are wary of paying such an amount of money for a backpack made of an old leather jacket.
“But people should remember that it is more difficult to change or remake something, rather than to create it from fresh material,” says Zvonarov. “People sometimes don’t understand that upcycling is good for nature, that it creates less garbage, and that fewer resources are consumed. All they care about is how the product looks.”
Remade’s founder Oleg Zvonarov shows fabric during the interview with the Kyiv Post in Kyiv on Sept. 11. (Oleg Petrasiuk) ( Oleg Petrasiuk)
Zvonarov says manufacturers themselves should upcycle and recycle their products.
“The producer should take care of the upcycling and recycling of its products, and from the start set up their production processes so that all of their goods can be recycled or remade. It’s very important,” he says.
The first step is to stop old or unwanted clothes from just ending up in landfills. To achieve that, Swedish fast-fashion clothing brand H&M has installed recycling boxes at their first shop in Ukraine, which opened in the country’s biggest shopping mall Lavina Mall in Kyiv on Aug. 18.
H&M accepts all old or unwanted clothes, no matter what brand they are or what material they are made of. To support the recycle and upcycle movement, the shop gives a Hr 40 discount on purchases worth over Hr 300 to those who put their old clothes in the boxes.
The clothes collected by H&M go through a special sorting procedure – those that are still in good condition are sent to second hand shops, or upcycled into other textile goods. Clothes of poor quality or in a bad condition are recycled.
And H&M is not the only business to support the recycling and upcycling of clothes in Ukraine: an increasing number of Ukraine’s designers either using environmentally friendly materials or upcycling their goods.
In order to spotlight the importance of upcycling and eco-friendliness in the clothes business, Ukrainian fashion designer Yana Chervinska created the Sustainable Fashion Pad public organization, which held its first event on Sept. 8-9.
“The idea was to show people that there is such a thing as sustainable fashion in Ukraine, as sustainability manifests in everything,” says Chervinska. “For instance, this is when a designer uses ecological materials, or upcycles its clothes. In Ukraine, this movement has only just started developing, but it is already changing the industry. And by combining upcycling and zero-waste production, a designer can achieve a high level of sustainability for their brand.”
The two-day event hosted a number of workshops and lectures, and attracted almost 2,000 visitors. Almost 30 Ukrainian designers presented their brands, including Ksenia Schnaider, Marsala, Raw Flaw, and Remade.
Zvonarov says his brand will stick to upcycling, and next plans to create bags and backpacks made of used jeans.
“Some people say that we have cool designs, some really appreciate that our bags are made from used materials, but some criticize us for using old jackets to create something new. But we’re proud of what we’re doing, and we maintain that upcycling is a great way of production,” he says.
