Recycled and Upcycled Clothing: An Examination of Environmentalism in American Fashion Culture

Abstract

This paper seeks to examine recycled and upcycled clothing as it relates to the environmental movement and the societal functions that allow it to prosper. Recycled and upcycled clothing is analyzed through interdisciplinary discourse and a practical representation of the actual construction of this type of clothing. Through an analysis of this discourse and my personal experience making the clothes, this paper explores the circumstances that contextualized recycled and upcycled clothing, and the current social systems that allow it to exist within American fashion culture.