ReWorks re-uses. recycles, upcycles and re-purposes surplus textiles for the high street fashion trade.
ReWorKs is a social enterprise and community interest company. With a concept of zero waste, its social purpose is to reduce textiles’ landfill by sustainably re-purposing and upcycling surplus textiles into vintage and mainstream fashion products.
ReWorKs offers education, mentoring and training for creative talent with a focus on textile processing to re-build textile manufacturing in the UK and strengthen the creative sector.
In the Textiles Hierarchy the prime aim is to Reduce, then Re-use, then Recycle…..In reality there are a few more Rs that are used – E.g. ReWorKing.
ReWorKs approach is to Reduce consumption through educating and marketing opportunities for Re-Use and Recycling.
Re-Use:
Under the umbrella of ‘VINTAGE’ certain items are desirable in their own right in their original condition. ReWorKs sources Vintage from rag yards and government surplus around the world as is necessary to meet demand. We also buy some dead stocks from factory over-runs
We seek to purchase stock lots with a degree of uniformity – E.g. Denim Jackets / Leather Biker Jackets etc. Inevitably one of the best sources for this is government (military) surplus where we can buy thousands of one item that is excatly the same piece by piece.
There are 3 main sources of textiles; Civilian Rag (i.e. Collected in road side bins – E.g. red cross), Government & Military Surplus & Factory Over-runs / Excess Fabric.
ReCycle:
Some items from the chain can not be easily marketing in their own right due to their condition, size or style etc. These items may need repairing through careful stitch work or require some energy to be deployed to re-condition them to a marketable state – Washing and Garment Dyeing are examples of a relatively easy recycling process.
Sometimes the item is too far from being marketable that further design inspiration is required. This is repurposing / upcycling. At this stage the garment may become unrecognisable from it’s original state or at the ultimate level compenentry may be stripped out and the remaining textile matter be shredded ready for re-weaving into flat material in the future.
ReWorKs CIC – A Social Enterprise offers 4 main solutions to address the Recycling challenge:
ReWorKs Vintage – Vintage Distributors
ReWorKs Collections – Recycled and Upcycled
RWKS Componentry – Componentry as a by product of Upcycling Projects
ReWorKs Re-Made – Heritage Classics no longer available in the Vintage Market
Team
Vintage Buyer – Hal B is our expert buyer who knows how to find the good stuff – He can source for you as well as us – Do ask!
IT Development – Will B manages the hosting and development of the retail and wholesale websites, as well as sundry other IT tasks.
Numbers – Zara V – keeps our spreadsheets on track and record keeping on time