Fashion

Born Again: New Upcycling Designer Hub Opens In Adelaide

Once you see the gorgeous transformations these designers have created, you’ll want them for yourself.

As we were stumbling along with sore but newly found muscles from our Studio Pilates session this morning, we stumbled upon something: the cutest little shop we’ve ever seen. Upon entering The Adelaide Remakery, located down Young Street between Studio Pilates and Elementary Coffee, we found a shop full of upcycled products, and we were their first ever customers (we do keep on top of the trends guys, and it’s not always by accident). The basic premise of The Adelaide Remakery is to encourage people to place value on what we have and to avoid adding so much waste to landfills when we can use it to create something new.

From baskets woven from food packets and data cables, to children’s clothes made from tablecloths and curtains (á la The Sound of Music), to chairs made from wine barrels, you’ll walk in and be astonished by the things these people can repurpose from scraps that would otherwise be in the landfill.

Founded by Sue Fenwick of Uanfink and Helen Rooney of Stitcharooney, who were inspired by the upcycling movement in England, applied to Renew Adelaide and busily worked on getting their shop together. After getting a number of additional suppliers together with amazingly creative products made from what once would have been considered worthless, they realised they had something special on their hands.

The ladies strong belief in encouraging others to think about repurposing or upcycling their possessions means there’s many different aspects to the business. Not just selling their upcycled products, they also stock a whole bunch of recycled craft supplies and are holding workshops to teach others to upcycle too. In a day and age when it’s so easy and cheap to buy a new shirt if your button falls off, many of us lack the skill to repair our clothes ourselves. From simple skills that everyone should know like how to mend your old clothes or resew on a button, to how to make things from other things yourself, their passion to teach others (rather than just take their money and do it themselves) is something to be valued.

You’re not going to walk into the shop and know that everything’s repurposed – a lot of the time you can barely tell, you’ll just see a shop full of beautiful things that happen to be repurposed. Helen and Sue trust Adelaide can open their minds and see the value in these kinds of products, and they hope this will make people think twice before buying so much fast fashion they can’t wear it in a season or throwing away clothing as soon as they get a tiny tear.

The Adelaide Remakery
9-17 Young St, Adelaide
0403 991 965
[email protected]

Suppliers include:
Babycakes Jewellery
Big Little Story
Deckle Studio
Glass Leaf Studio
Juanita Tortilla
Stitcharooney
Tootsie Handmade
Uanfink
Wonder What You Were

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