BySympany Upcycling by Sympany
Sympany is a textile recycling social enterprise from The Netherlands, it collects and re-purposes used clothing in order to fund charitable projects. The gathered second-hand clothes are being sold a.o. in African countries. (specifically to Zambia, Malawi, DR Congo and Angola) The used clothes are also being recycled into cleaning cloths and insulation material and they are upcycled into ‘new fabrics’ as well.
BySympany
BySympany is a new initiative in which funds are generated by collaborating with (sustainable) fashion brands. The collab with Dutch jeanslabel Kyuchi is the first in line: ‘By Sympany By Kuyichi created jeans with upcycled rags. (20% of the jeans consist of recovered fibres)
(see or/and buy the jeans) More numbers: 10% of the proceeds go to one of Sympany’s projects: the Mobile Training Project in Fashion & Design in Malawi.
Flashy Campaign Launch
Yesterday (Thursday the 6th of December) we went to the launch of the By Sympany By Kuyichi Jeans at Magazijn 153 in Amsterdam. On show was work by embroidery-artists Victoria Villasana and Nicole Chui, they embelished the black and white photography made by JW Kaldenbach in a colorful manner. The flashy imagery makes do for a fashionable campaign (art-directed by Karen Heuter): in which the boys and girls all wear The Jeans with second hand tops. Nice!
Click here for more party-snaps we made at that event.
Mobile Training Project in Fashion & Design in Malawi
“This project is a collaboration between Sympany and local partner organization DAPP Malawi. The mobile school, which operates from a truck and a large tent, offers three years of sewing training every 30 months to 30 young women from remote villages. In total the project will train 270 students.” (read more bysympany.nl)
____________________________________________________________________
NOTE: When it comes to denim/jeans and recyling/sustainability we, at Mimi Berlin, have an opinion that is rather a cynical one. We feel that it is impossible to produce jeans in an enviromental or human friendly manner. We do understand that making an effort in any way to try and makes things better is a good thing: but, we also suggest: BUY LESS.
If you really must buy jeans (which most of us do) get the basic ones: without extra washings, cuttings, schratchings, dyes, bleaching etc. Also, get them without elasthane, it all will make your jeans last longer.
Please click the link below to see, in our opinion, why denim and sustainability don’t match Feeling Green about Indigo