Fashion Upcycling: The Fashion Upcycling: The Challenges, Successes, and Solutions From A Designers Perspective

Upcycling is a design practice that uses pre-consumer textile waste from apparel manufacturers or post-consumer textile waste derived from disassembled garments to create new fashion, providing a sustainable design solution to divert textile waste from landfills. Although Canadian data is scarce, Weber, Lynes and Young (2016) have determined that textile waste in the United States contributed 11.3 million tonnes to landfills in 2009, a 40% increase since 1999. This comparative case study was designed to include a literature review of past academic research, a demographic questionnaire, and interviews with Canadian fashion companies who practice upcycling. The objective of this study was to examine the challenges faced by companies that upcycle and the strategic solutions they integrated into their business models. The findings from this research study contribute to knowledge regarding strategies for designing, producing, and retailing upcycled fashion in Canada and on a global scale.