Goodwill donations turn fashionable
What happens to all those Goodwill throwaways when they don’t sell in a local thrift store? As much as 75 percent ends up in landfill. Or equally bad, those too-tight Nike shorts and low-slung Gap jeans are shipped to third-world nations, where they clothe the poor.
That last part sounds noble, but the resulting glut of last-year’s baby-doll blouses and cargo pants from the U.S. ends up squelching demand for locally made clothing in underdeveloped countries desperate for their own self-sustaining economies. (That clothing might also layer landfills in places like India and Africa.)
The answer? Buy less. Or buy outerwear that’s made to last — and outlast seasonal lapses in bad judgment.
One designer is targeting part of the problem with a new environmentally friendly fashion line that will attempt to recycle unsold clothing from Goodwill. Nick Graham, the founder of zany underwear maker Joe Boxer, has aligned with the San Francisco arm of Goodwill to produce the line, called William Good, according to an article from the San Francisco Chronicle.
Graham and a team of designers will plumb Goodwill’s discard bins—those velvet dresses and leather coats not sold in stores after 30 days—for raw materials to create new designs. T-shirts, dresses and coats will cost between $15 and $300.
The first William Good shop will open mid-November inside the Goodwill store on San Francisco’s Fillmore street. (People can also visit the online store.) Graham said he hopes to expand the program across the country, starting with New York.
“We’re not buying anything new for this project. The labels are the only thing that’s new,” Graham said in the article.
Still, it’s hard to imagine that William Good will be able to refashion all of Goodwill’s donations into sellable outfits. The San Francisco branch alone reportedly receives as much as 23 million pounds of clothing annually. For that reason, I’d love to see this trend take off with other designers and for Goodwill to open its treasure trove of outdated fashions to others. It all eventually comes back in style anyway, right?
December 22nd, 2007 at 1:20 pm
[…] The event, held here at the environmentally certified Bently Reserve Building, was half high society promoting a cause and half a cause promulgating society. Local celebrities and luminaries, who paid anywhere between $250 for general admission to $5,000 for a VIP dinner, were treated to eco-friendly fare including grass-fed beef, fair trade coffee and organic tequila. The entertainment: a henna-tattoo booth, live auctions, models dressed like Marie Antoinette floating in the crowd, and a fashion show of eco-chic wear–items made of hemp silks and recycled tuxedo shirts (this from emerging designer William Good, featured here). […]
March 25th, 2010 at 1:42 pm
I love all kinds of tattoos! These are some of my favorites. Thanx