BUENOS AIRES — Used dishcloths and linen from around the home have never looked so good.
Some of the most creative Argentine designers are giving new life to what some might call “rags,” and are being socially and environmentally conscientious in the process.
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One such designer is Carola Besasso, founder and owner of DAM, an ‘upcycling’ shop in the hip Palermo district of the Argentine capital.
Besasso says she worked with used textiles for years, “though I wasn’t brave enough to sell them in the shop.” The first upcycled item she dared to market, during the 2020 pandemic, was a small wrap-around bag with an oven mitt sewn onto it. It became the starting point for more designs using cloth from dish towels, bedsheets, aprons, and ‘mesh’ and mopping cloths.
There are emotional benefits to her work, she says, as it connects her both to the people who donate the used textiles and those walking away with a revamped item. With every purchase, she says, customers were “completing a virtuous circle and prolonging its life with their own history.”
They’re also helping curb the waste and pollution associated with the fashion industry and the production of new clothing. “I make sure I tell them always where the cloth came from and about all the love that went into its journey,” Besasso says.
She believes more people will take an interest in a sector that has turned its back on mass production and mindless, standardized consumption. DAM, which opened some 20 years ago, can vouch for that with its growing, clientèle.
Coats from blankets
Designers Leonor Barreiro and Lourdes Chicco Ruiz always loved quilts – for their colorful patterns and cosy, protective feel. To many people, quilts and blankets also evoke idyllic childhood memories. So why not turn them into clothes, the founders of the Lindor brand thought?
Their designs have no buttons, add-ons or attachments. They may include pieces customers bring to the shop to be repaired, or might take to one of their do-it-yourself workshops (Traé tu frazada, juntos hacemos tu Lindor). There the designers teach them how to cut and resew their blankets into a new item. They are also willing to reveal their patterns to allow customers to do it themselves, in the manner of a fashion creative commons.
There’s a personal attachment to something they had at home
“We share the principal model for whoever wants it. You can download it and make your own Lindor.” This, says Lourdes and Leonor, is to “democratize access and promote sustainable alternatives.”
Their clothing tends to be genderless and sizeless, often fashioned on the ancestral poncho – a basic and essential piece of clothing. Some like the Lindor concept for its singularity, others for its creative interaction with clients, the simple and quirky designs or even, out of a personal attachment to something they had at home.
Tablecloth clothes
Florencia Alvián Roman and Julieta Licandro Meta, two graduates of the University of Buenos Aires Architecture and Design faculty, had an idea inspired by old family pictures, memories of family meals and their grandmothers. They wanted to turn this “sense of tenderness and sweetness into a family of clothes that talk to one another. Almost like a fantasy wardrobe we invented for our memories,” they say. Their concepts became the Sobremesa (Tabletalk) project, shown last year at the Transitando la incertidumbre (Transitioning Through Uncertainty) exhibition at PROA21, a design and creativity confab.
What was the creative process in coming up with designs? The partners mostly took a spontaneous, trial and error approach until reaching the right idea. They first imagined whom they were designing for and the context. What was the table like at an imagined gathering, who was seated and what type of meal had been served? How does the tablecloth fall on a table, or how is an apron tied? With these questions, they devised a method of developing typologies.
Asked where fashion was heading in coming years, Roman responded: “Nothing will be thrown away,” observing that this was the norm with their grandparents. “We can create infinite and beautiful worlds with dish cloths, tablecloths and scraps,” she said.
Household textiles
Juliana García Bello, a fashion design graduate from the University of Buenos Aires, has been working in fashion for over a decade, specializing in simple, hand-made and unisex clothes. Five years ago she too began making clothes using tablecloths, napkins and other household textiles.
She reflected on the practice while living in Arnhem in the Netherlands, at a time when she had already won recognition for her sustainable designs. Months ago, she returned to Argentina and set up shop in Río Grande in Tierra del Fuego, where she was born.
It’s a deep connection with everything that is day-to-day
What does working with household textiles mean? To her, it means a “deep connection with everything that is day-to-day and familiar,” she says. Objects with a history always have something to say, so upcycling and preserving them is both sustainable and an expression of respect for items that were part of people’s lives.
It is about “transforming the ordinary into something extraordinary, unique and full of meaning,” she says. Her work with recycled fabrics “exponentially” increased her awareness of fashion’s environmental footprint, she said.
Upcycled fashion, she said, “was a niche that is becoming a global trend. I’m proud to have been part of this movement from the start.” She likes to point out one particular jacket she designed in collaboration with her grandmother Dora, and now part of the IDA Foundation Archive of Argentine design. It includes bits of shirts belonging to her neighbors and part of a duvet, and symbolizes the family ties maintained over 3,000 kilometers, between La Plata and Tierra del Fuego.
