RECLAIM is a knitwear and accessories collection made of 100% up-cycled, recycled, and donated materials. 

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Process: Garments- 100% knit, Accessories- 100% woven.

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Material Sources: Helmut Lang, Goodwill, Salvation Army, Lower East Side E-Waste Recycling Center, and donations. 

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Research: The catalysts behind this collection are environmental issues, squatters of Alphabet City New York, and microorganisms. Climate change has been a pressing issue ever since the Industrial Revolution and CO2 emissions and waste levels have skyrocketed. In order to minimize their carbon footprint and their waste production, squatters in Alphabet City, New York have been working to create a self-sustaining community and lifestyle based on repurposing and up-cycling. 

 

Microorganisms are also a self-sustaining community; as they colonize, they change their environments by depleting their resources in order to create the optimal environment. An example of this is the microorganisms and bacteria living in the ocean. Studies have shown that they are mutating their genes in order to survive in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch-- a vortex of 79,000 tons of plastic located in the center of the Pacific Ocean. 

 

This mutation process in order to adapt dictated the knitting process-- the human errors and the lack of infinite materials guided each garment to be knit organically and spontaneously. Using the squatters method of repurposing and up-cycling and microorganism mutations as the process, each piece cannot be recreated. 

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The knit swatches created and sampled can be found under the textiles tab. ​