New Season, Old Clothes

In a year when the pandemic caused massive disruptions to the fashion industry’s global supply chain, upcycling—the practice of using deadstock and discarded materials to create new pieces—became the mother of invention for some of the world’s biggest luxury brands. But will it change the high-fashion game for good?

Last spring, during the first days of sheltering at home, Proenza Schouler’s Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez realised that they were in a bind. The world’s premium fabric mills, many based in the areas of northern Italy hardest hit by the pandemic, were all closed until further notice. How could a luxury fashion label design a new collection without any new fabric? After innumerable Zoom sessions with suppliers, they decided to use bolts of deadstock fabric leftover from past seasons. “We had this vast archive of fabrics from the past decade and we really tapped into that—and in a strange way, it forced us to be more creative,” recalls Hernandez. “Ninety percent of the spring 2021 collection is made from archival fabrics that have been reworked in different ways.” Meeting the challenge with an optimistic throw-on-and-go collection of rib-knit separates and oversize tailoring in earthy tones, the duo also achieved their long-held goal of reducing waste. “This process has taught us a lot that we plan to take forward into future seasons,” McCollough explains. “We keep saying, ‘Wouldn’t it be sad if we got out of this and went back to life as it was?’ It has made us think outside the box.”