Kenyan fashion designers upcycle waste textiles

DW (English)

About 92 million tonnes of textile waste are thrown away each year around the world. In Nairobi, a group of young creatives want to raise awareness about these mountains of waste, while at the same time showing the value of reused clothing.

Transcript

00:01This is Nairobi's biggest dump site.

00:04Mountains of rubbish, sky-high.

00:06It's not just regular waste.

00:08Countless items of clothing can be found here,

00:11thrown away by the global north.

00:13To some people, there's value to be found here,

00:16from curtains to women's shirts and kids' jackets.

00:19Every week, another ton of textile waste arrives here.

00:24We've seen a lot of clothes here from different labels,

00:26from Europe, from the U.S., often made in China.

00:29And while a few of them can be used again,

00:31many of them just end up here on this dump site,

00:34the biggest dump site in Kenya,

00:36which keeps on growing day by day.

00:39Ten kilometers away is Nairobi's biggest second-hand market, Gikomba,

00:44a place where such clothes were actually supposed to get a second life.

00:48The clothes are imported and sold to local traders in bulk,

00:51at a cost of between 50 to 115 U.S. dollars per bundle.

00:56What traders can't sell goes to the rubbish tip.

00:59But there are people who want to change this.

01:02A group of fashion designers and filmmakers want to show that it's possible

01:06to turn one person's trash into another's treasure.

01:09They're preparing a fashion show at Gikomba market.

01:13Cut-up jeans, worn leather and studded belts,

01:16all you see here is thrifted and upcycled.

01:19It's the brainchild of Luca Wakarindi, who herself owns a store at the market.

01:24We want to undo the idea that every item that you find on thrift is not,

01:29you know, it's waste.

01:30Because I have been able to build a career out of the pieces.

01:34But then I'll also tell you that whenever we are thrifting,

01:37you find so many pieces we can't use, you know.

01:40Luca thinks the clothing should be sorted through properly before it reaches Kenya,

01:44so that less of it ends up in landfill.

01:47Some designers are going to extra lengths to use unwanted fabrics.

01:51This was like a cutting, but it was a one-off piece.

01:55So people don't usually take those.

01:58Like this year we have used like mix and match because it was such a small piece.

02:04Because the whole sense of us upcycling,

02:06you want to move from the mistake that was done maybe in Europe

02:09where they made something that was not wearable, something that was not consumable.

02:15By that he means clothing disregarded by fashion houses because of small production errors.

02:20Both the designers and show organizers believe that the issue of textile waste needs all hands on deck.

02:26Starting with the brands who they say should take on more responsibility for the waste they produce.

02:31And the customers abroad who should think twice before turning their backs on unwanted clothes.

02:37So the show seems to have been a success.

02:44The people in the secondhand market feel that their work is valued

02:47and some of the items at least got another life.

02:50With trucks of clothes rolling into the market every day,

02:54it's clear that not all of them can be turned into glamorous outfits.

02:58But the designers here hope to have inspired a different way of thinking about fashion and waste.

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