Sydney boutique, Handcut, uses recycled clothes and fabrics

The store, called Handcut, is located on Sydney’s lower North Shore and it lives up to its name as a team of designers selectively choose, cut and repurpose fabric from charities, rag houses and closing businesses.

“Charities don’t sell clothes if they’re damaged,” Handcut’s owner, Tanya Greenwood, told The Weekly. “Damaged product goes into rag bins and rag houses get these fabrics. You can buy them by the kilo.”

Greenwood likens her team to “farmers” who sort through piles of clothes and fabric, selecting and mixing them to produce new items for winter wardrobes.

The company has created at least 50,000 new pieces of clothing, accessories and home ware items for the 2014 Autumn/Winter season alone. And the brand claims to have “saved” 100,000 woollen jumpers, over 50,000 woollen trousers, 30,000 men’s dress shirts, 10,000 trench coats and thousands of kilos of household manchester fabrics.

“You can get five or six items out of one jumper,” Greenwood says. “There’s so much waste in the fashion industry. This is an organic way to produce clothing.”

Typical customers of Handcut are women returning to work who want to add flair to their wardrobe, Greenwood says.

“Ninety per cent have raised their kids; they’ve done all the school runs; they’ve gone back to part time work; and they don’t want to look like the receptionist or the secretary.

“These women between 30 and 60 understand themselves. They’ve conformed to fashion their entire lives and now they’re comfortable in their own skin. And by owning something that’s one-of-a kind and recycled, they’re doing their bit for the environment and for themselves. It makes them stand that little bit taller.”

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