Excessorizing Just Got Way Cooler

I was at a reggae beach party last night, mixing with the ridiculously good-looking and creatively homemade surfer crowd. (One of my most favorite, secret niches of the Basque Country). I say “homemade” not only because you know those muscles are so ocean-fresh that they still reek of saltwater, but also because almost everyone was wearing something they designed themselves. Washed up fishing nets were reborn into fashionable handbags, old sweatshirts became perfect head wraps to hold your dreads, and broken surfboard leashes moonlighted as jewelry. Armed with my woven plastic chip bag wallet and arm-warmers made out of shrunken sweater scraps, I felt at home. We might have been drinking in excess, but we were also wearing it – a huge helping hand to the environment.

Fortunately, Looptworks is one clothing company that is working on making this kind of surfer-style “excess” orizing a way of life. Marketed to the eco-friendly, outdoor crowd, Looptworks promises to deliver clothing that not only embodies fit, form, and function, but is constructed from 100% pre-consumer (never worn) waste.

“Every snap, every button, every zipper, and every thread was left over and about to be thrown away before we got our hands on it,” their website explains. “Because we never know what we’ll find – or how much – each product belongs to a hand numbered limited edition.” Currently, Looptworks showcases a small sample of women’s and men’s clothing and my favorite – a laptop bag made out of excess wetsuit materials. Founders Gary Peck and Scott Hamlin hope to expand their wardrobe line and localize their production over time while incorporating the use of already-used clothing into their company as well. For now, they give this advice to their clients:

LooptWorks only makes products with never used materials. So, we can’t take your clothes. But we are well aware that Americans throw 20 million tons of textiles into landfills every year. In the future we hope to convert used stuff back into something new. For now, here are the steps we recommend you take with your excess:

1. If it is a LooptWorks product, please donate it to a charity of your choice. Get a receipt and send us a copy. We will give you a discount on your next purchase.
2. Donate all usable textiles to charity for reuse.
3. Donate textiles that are too worn or tattered to be usable to a textile recycling center for repurposing into rags.
4. If your textiles are not even useful as rags, donate them to textile recycler that can convert them into pet bedding, insulation, carpet, guardrail bumpers and even pencils.
5. Encourage your local community to start either curbside recycling of textiles or create a centralized drop off.

The average textile factory produces 60,000 pounds of pre-consumer waste per week and if it’s hard to picture what kind of impact that has on our environment – just think: one really bad wipeout at Waimea. Looptworks sweet, upcycled threads are a serious threat to the fashion world and a kind of tide we should all be riding.

The conservation of matter is a universal principle that states: matter can’t be created or destroyed. Only changed or rearranged. Right now, from the looks of our planet, this principle matters a lot. That’s why Looptworks stops excess from being scrapped and uses it to create 100% of their products.

• Organization Type: For-Profit
• Website: http://www.looptworks.com/
• Founder(s): Gary Peck, Scott Hamlin
• Founded: 2009
• Location: Portland, OR
• See complete company list here