Today we share part 10 of 25, looking back on the Salvage Project: the year we built a complete atelier in the middle of a trade fair floor.
Waste not as an endpoint, but as a starting point.
A pile of old jeans on the table
In 2012, one of our projects began not with a moodboard or a fabric swatch, but with a pile of discarded clothing. Worn, faded, frayed. Leftover samples from earlier collections, and old garments customers could hand in at our stores in exchange for a discount. Most people would have seen nothing left in it.
We saw something else.
Fabric that lasts for years. Seams that carry stories. Indigo that only grows more beautiful with time.Throwing it away seemed a waste. So we started tinkering: what can we still make from this?
Upcycling was barely a concept in the denim world back then. How to turn discarded clothing into a full collection was something we had to work out for ourselves.
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Tinker, autumn 2012 campaign
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Finishing Room, Bread & Butter Berlin 2012
Saving what is about to be lost
We called it the Salvage Project.
Salvage literally means: to save what is about to be lost.And that is exactly what happened.
At our atelier in Haarlem, worn jeans, jackets and T-shirts were taken apart. Our design team turned them into new pieces: patchwork jackets and shirts, built from different shades and textures of denim. Every garment was cut and sewn by hand.
Then each piece went into the indigo bath. Dipped by hand in natural indigo, and for a deeper colour sometimes up to ten times, spread over three weeks. Once the colour was right, our designers worked back into the piece using hand-sanding and sewing techniques. Finally, our graphics team printed the labels and packaging, also from recycled material.
Designing with existing material turned out to be a craft of its own. Every pair of jeans is worn differently, faded differently, cut to a different size. You do not start with a blank sheet, but with what the material allows. Awkward at times. But those very limits produced designs we would never have made otherwise.
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Eight rooms, one process
The Salvage Project premiered at Bread & Butter in Berlin, at the time one of the largest denim and fashion trade fairs in Europe, with hundreds of brands and tens of thousands of trade visitors per edition.
Where other brands presented their latest collection, we moved our atelier onto the trade fair floor for three days. A long wall of reclaimed wood and pallets, with eight windows in it. Beside each window, a handwritten chalkboard:
Cutting Room. Sewing Room. Indigo Room. Drying Room. Press Room. Labelling Room. Trimming Room. Finishing Room.Behind those windows, real work was going on. In the Cutting Room, old garments were taken apart. In the Sewing Room, the sewing machines rattled. In the Indigo Room stood a bathtub filled with indigo, where pieces were dipped by hand. On to the washing line in the Drying Room, under the iron in the Press Room, and past the Labelling Room and Trimming Room for Kuyichi labels, buttons and rivets. In the Finishing Room, every piece got its final check on the dress form.
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Sailor, autumn 2012 campaign
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Indigo Room, with the Soldier and Sailor work shirts, Berlin 2012
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor
Our team wore work shirts with stencilled names across the back:
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor, Rich Man, Poor Man, Beggar Man, Thief.The eight figures from "Tinker, Tailor", a centuries-old English counting rhyme. It ran through all our collections that year: every delivery drew inspiration from one of these figures, and from the way war, industry and forgotten trades shaped the clothes of the people behind them. Eight figures, eight rooms. It fitted perfectly.
The press described the stand as a living installation. Visitors were not looking at a finished product with a story attached. They watched the story happen: from discarded garment to new design, in eight steps.
Auctioned for charity
The pieces made in Berlin did not disappear into a warehouse afterwards. A few months later, they had a second premiere at café Roest in Amsterdam.
There the collection was presented as if in a gallery: a set of 100% recycled, hand-made and indigo-dyed garments, each one unique. Visitors could place a bid on the design of their choice.
All proceeds went to the Ubuntu Streetkids Foundation, which gives street children the chance to develop their creative skills.So the story ended where it began: with the conviction that discarded clothing still holds value. For the material, and for someone else.
With the Salvage Project, we showed that waste does not have to be an endpoint, but can be the beginning of something new.
This was the 10th story in our 25-part series celebrating 25 years of Kuyichi.
Stay tuned for the next chapter of our journey. Until then, you can browse our newest items or revisit our previous chapter.
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Items from the Salvage collection, autumn 2012
New in
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With the Salvage Project, we showed that waste does not have to be an endpoint,
but can be the beginning of something new.
25 years of Pure Denim Pioneering. Every chapter a choice, every choice a step forward.
25 years of Pure Denim Pioneering
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