We Make Our Living Upcycling

Meet the professional fixer-uppers who make money from stuff no one else wants

- Chris Morley

‘I “supercycle” clothes on Instagram’

KATE McGUIRE, 48, is married and lives in west London with her son and twin stepdaughters. She set up a Converted Closet in 2016 to show how to ‘supercycle’ neglected clothes into gorgeous, wearable pieces.

-THE IDEA

I’d enjoyed a successful career in the City, firstly in banking, then as a headhunter. In 2012 I left work when my son Gus, now six, was born. I’ve always been crazy about fashion and had grown up altering clothes to suit me as I’d struggled with weight issues in my teens and twenties. In 2016, I set up an Instagram account @converted closet. I bought a tripod and took a daily picture to share how I converted my clothes. Today I have around 8.5K followers.

-WHAT HAPPENED NEXT

Inspired by The True Cost, a documentary about the devastating impact of fast fashion, I phoned my 20-year-old godson, Jack, who loves film-making, and told him I wanted to make a film. He rounded up a couple of his friends and together we shot my first five-minute ‘before and after’ show. Eleanor, a fashion student, had a £5 outsize Givenchy outfit from a charity shop that she never wore. I tweaked it to flatter her shape. She was really emotional when she saw how amazing she looked in her ‘new’ clothes. I knew this was a fantastic way of getting my message across, so in 2018 I launched the Converted Closet website and YouTube channel to show how anyone can ‘supercycle’ their clothes.

-BREAKTHROUGH MOMENT

My ‘pinch-me’ moment was interviewing Katharine Hamnett CBE for Fashion Revolution Week in 2019. It was mindblowing to think I’d started from nowhere two years previously and was interviewing a pioneer of sustainable fashion on stage.

-STEEPEST LEARNING CURVE