Fashion has yet to find out what to do with its waste. Leftovers from yard sales, thrift stores or charity shops are shipped around the world in bulk for budget-friendly disposal, eventually left to be incinerated or put out of sight, dying a slow, environmentally harmful death. This ever-growing amount of fashion debris is a depressing testament to the current consumer era. Prototypes taps into the potential that lies idle. Rather than producing new garments, the design collective opts for an approach focused on strategies of upcycling and repurposing. Prototypes facilitates a sustainable attitude towards making and wearing clothes. Out with the new and in with the old.

Prototypes makes use of deadstock fabric and garments to create new pieces of clothing. The opportunities are plentiful, and there is no reason why nine football scarves can’t become a one-of-a-kind jumpsuit or why two pairs of sweatpants can’t become a hoodie. Not everyone is trained in fashion design, though, so Prototypes offers some guidance: Proto Packs equip those with the will and desire to do it themselves with a manual and sewing patterns to do so. Finding inspiration in the mundane, Prototypes encourages individual expression centred on sustainability.