Two or three pairs of old jeans. A handful of little squares. A vest made from fabric that already existed.
When I visited Vana in Bogotá, Colombia, Anna Venezuela showed me how she approached clothes that other people might have thrown away.
Some could be repaired. Some could be cut apart and rebuilt.
Others still had fabric worth keeping, even when the original garment was no longer wearable.
Old Jeans Became a Vest at Vana in Bogotá
Anna’s approach was not about pretending that every damaged item could be saved. It was about looking properly before deciding something had reached the end of its life. She showed me a patchwork denim vest, explained how Lily handled the sewing and reconstruction, and examined a pair of trousers whose damaged waistband could be replaced or redesigned. She was also saving small fabric scraps with the hope of eventually turning them into beds for dogs rescued by animal charities.
Vana has since closed. This article documents Anna’s work and our conversation while the workshop was operating. The ideas and quotations come from Anna; the external research provides wider context for the environmental questions surrounding clothing, repair and waste.
How did Anna Venezuela turn old jeans into a new vest?
Anna showed me a vest made from small pieces of denim taken from two or three pairs of jeans. The material did not need to be new to become something different. It needed to be in usable condition, and someone needed the skill to put it together.
These were two, two or three jeans and we just cut them into little squares and made this little vest.
Anna Venezuela, describing the vest at Vana in Bogotá
That is upcycling in a practical sense: using an existing item or material to make something with a new form or purpose. It differs from simply repairing a seam, although repair and upcycling can overlap. It also differs from recycling, which generally involves processing material so that it can be used again as a raw material.
Anna explained that Lily carried out the sewing work, from taking garments apart to rebuilding them. The distinction matters because an upcycled garment does not appear simply because somebody has a good idea. It takes time, labour, construction knowledge and a material that is suitable for the intended use.
Here’s Lily. She does everything that has to do with the sewing part of the garments from ripping it apart to building it completely.
Anna Venezuela
Anna’s vest is a small, tangible example of a bigger question: why should usable fabric be discarded simply because the garment it came from is no longer wanted or wearable in its original form?
The WRAP research on extending clothing life examines how keeping clothes in active use for longer can reduce their environmental footprint. WRAP has also reported that extending the active life of clothing by nine months can reduce its carbon, water and waste footprints by around 20 to 30 per cent. That estimate comes from earlier UK research, not a universal guarantee for every garment or every repair. The outcome depends on what the person does with the clothing and whether keeping it in use displaces the need to buy something new.
What is the difference between upcycling, repairing and buying second-hand?
These options are often grouped together under sustainable fashion, but they do different things. Understanding the difference makes it easier to decide what is useful for a particular garment, and what might actually reduce the demand for new production.
Repair: keep the garment doing its original job
Repair is usually the most direct option when a garment still fits, suits the wearer and can be made functional again. A loose button, split seam, damaged zip or worn waistband does not necessarily mean the rest of the garment has lost its value. Repair preserves more of the original construction and may require less additional material than a major redesign.
Anna’s suggestions for the damaged trousers began with this kind of practical thinking. If the waistband could not be saved, it might be replaced. If the rest of the fabric was sound, there was no reason to assume that the entire pair had to go.
Upcycling: make something different from what already exists
Upcycling becomes useful when a garment no longer works in its original form, or when the remaining fabric is more useful for another design. Anna suggested turning trousers into shorts, adding panels to create a more flared shape, changing their construction or making an entirely different garment such as a crop top or vest top.
The denim vest took that idea further: pieces from several pairs of jeans became one new item. The advantage is that the project uses existing material. Its environmental value, however, depends on the full picture. New thread, fastenings, lining, equipment, transport and the time needed to make the garment all count. Most importantly, the new piece needs to be worn and useful rather than becoming another item that sits unused in a wardrobe.
Second-hand: use a garment that already exists
Buying second-hand is different. Instead of transforming a garment, someone else’s existing clothing moves into a new wardrobe. It can be a particularly practical option when a person needs an item that is already made, fits well and is likely to be worn regularly.
Second-hand clothing can avoid some of the impacts associated with producing a new garment, especially when it replaces a new purchase. But the benefit is not automatic. A second-hand purchase that adds to a wardrobe full of barely worn clothes may not displace new production at all. Nor does resale, by itself, resolve the problem of excessive production or the large quantities of clothing that are unsuitable for reuse.
The Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s work on a new textiles economy argues for a system in which products are used more, materials remain in circulation and waste is designed out. Repair, resale, reuse and remaking can all contribute, but none should be treated as a substitute for reducing unnecessary production and consumption.
So which is more sustainable: upcycling or second-hand?
There is no honest universal winner. The better choice depends on what you need, what you already own, the condition of the material and what the alternative would have been.
- Repair what you already wear when a relatively simple fix can keep the garment in regular use.
- Upcycle when the original shape no longer works but the fabric is sound and the redesigned item will be worn.
- Buy second-hand when you genuinely need something and can find a suitable existing garment instead of buying new.
- Buy new when necessary, choosing something fit for purpose that you expect to wear and care for over time.
The point is not to turn every clothing decision into a competition. It is to stop assuming that a new purchase is always the easiest or best answer. Anna’s work began with what was already available, and that is a useful place for anyone to start.
How does Anna decide whether fabric is still worth keeping?
Anna’s assessment began with the material itself. A garment could be too small, ripped or damaged and still contain cloth that was strong enough to use again. The condition of the fibres mattered more than whether the garment looked perfect.
What you do is just look at the material, and I feel like it’s very intuitive. You know when the material is good to go and when you can do something else about it. If it feels like the material is too small, like, I don’t know, this top is tiny, but the material is great, save it because you can use this with something else to create something new.
Anna Venezuela
Her advice was to distinguish between damage to the garment and damage to the fabric. A torn seam or broken fastening may be repairable. A large piece of intact cloth may be reused for patches, panels or a different design. But fabric that has become severely weakened, frayed or structurally compromised may not be suitable for another garment.
That’s the point in which you recycle it. But if it’s ripped, if it’s broken, but the material is good, good to go. We can upcycle it.
Anna Venezuela
In practice, recycling textiles depends on what collection and processing systems are available. A fabric’s fibre composition, condition and any mixture of fibres can affect whether it can be recycled into another useful material. A label that says a garment contains polyester and cotton, for example, does not guarantee that a local recycler can separate and process those fibres.
The European Environment Agency’s work on textiles examines the environmental effects of textile production and consumption, as well as challenges around collection, reuse and recycling. Its findings are useful context, but local recycling options differ, so check what is actually accepted where you live before putting unwanted clothes into a collection bin.
What can you do with trousers damaged in the washing machine?
During our conversation, Anna examined a pair of trousers with damage around the waistband. She explained that the affected part could not be saved in its existing form, but the rest of the fabric still appeared usable. Rather than writing off the entire garment, she offered several possible designs.
Replace the waistband or turn the damage into a feature
The first option would be to use some embellishment of some sort or some patchwork type of thing. We could change, replace the whole waistband for another kind of fabric and make it different. Make maybe something that contrasts, or if you want the pants to remain simple, then we can find some fabric that matches the colour and then change the waistband.
Anna Venezuela
A matching waistband could make the repair discreet. A contrasting fabric could turn it into a deliberate design choice. Neither approach requires the entire garment to be discarded simply because one section is damaged.
Change the shape or make something completely different
We could either do shorts if you want to make them shorter, just remove the whole thing. Maybe the fabric that is over here, we can add them on the sides if you wanted something that is more flared. Or we can make them into a little, like, overalls. It’s worth it to make something else out of it.
We could also make something completely different, like something like a crop top or change it into like a little vest top. That could also be an option.
Anna Venezuela
These were options Anna suggested, not transformations I am claiming were subsequently completed. The point was that the trousers had more than one possible future. The remaining fabric could become shorts, a flared design, overalls or a different garment altogether, depending on its condition and the wearer’s preferences.
Anna also advised checking how the garment should be washed in future. Hand-washing can be appropriate for some delicate items, but it is not a universal rule for every fabric. Read the care label, follow the garment’s instructions and avoid assuming that a washing-machine mishap means a piece of clothing is beyond repair.
The environmental cost behind the clothes we discard
Anna connected her work to a wider concern about the way clothing is made, sold and discarded. She spoke about water pollution, textile waste, the treatment of garment workers and the pressure to keep producing clothes quickly and cheaply. Those were her observations about the fashion system. The wider research makes clear that the environmental problems are substantial, although their scale varies by material, manufacturing process, country and product.
The United Nations Environment Programme describes textiles and fashion as a significant environmental challenge, with impacts across production, consumption and waste. Its overview of textiles and pollution discusses the industry’s pollution burden and the need for changes across the value chain. The frequently cited estimate that the fashion industry contributes around 2 to 8 per cent of global greenhouse-gas emissions is a broad range, not a precise annual measurement of every garment or company.
Textile waste is another part of the problem. Large quantities of clothing and textile products are discarded every year, while collection and recycling systems remain uneven. The United Nations Environment Programme and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation both describe the need to reduce waste and keep materials in use for longer. Exact global totals vary by definition, year and data source, so figures should not be presented as if every country measures textile waste in the same way.
Anna also described the water used to achieve the faded look of denim. She pointed out the difference between the darker colour inside a garment and the lighter, washed appearance on the outside, explaining that stonewashing and other finishing processes can require additional water and processing.
The details vary by factory and technique, but denim finishing can involve water, chemicals and energy. The European Environment Agency’s textiles resources provide broader context on the environmental pressures associated with textile production and consumption. The lesson is not that every pair of jeans has an identical footprint. It is that a garment’s appearance can depend on processes that are not visible when we buy it.
Anna’s argument was that a low price does not tell the whole story of a garment. Costs can be shifted away from the person buying it and onto workers, communities, water systems and the environment. A cheap item is not necessarily harmful in every respect, and a more expensive item is not automatically ethical. Price alone is not a reliable measure of the conditions in which clothing was made.
Where do unwanted clothes end up?
The global trade in used clothing is complicated. Some garments are resold and worn again, while others arrive in markets where there is not enough demand for the quantity or type of clothing received. Damaged, unsuitable or unsold items can become a burden for local waste systems and communities.
The BBC’s reporting on discarded clothing in Chile’s Atacama Desert documented mountains of unwanted garments in the desert. In Ghana, The OR Foundation documents the impacts of the second-hand clothing trade on Accra’s Kantamanto Market and the surrounding environment. Its work is particularly relevant because it shows that the story does not end when a consumer donates a garment or sends it into the resale system.
These examples do not mean that second-hand clothing is inherently bad. Resale can keep useful garments in circulation. The problem is treating donation or export as a guaranteed solution, regardless of the quantity, quality or local demand for the clothing being sent. Reuse works best when the items can realistically be worn and when the systems involved are transparent about what happens to the rest.
This is where Anna’s focus on existing garments becomes especially relevant. Repairing a pair of trousers, transforming old jeans or choosing a second-hand item that will actually be worn are practical decisions. None can solve the global waste problem alone, but each can be part of using what already exists more responsibly.
What did Anna learn from her grandmothers?
For Anna, sewing was not simply a practical skill or a business idea. It was part of her family history. She grew up watching both of her grandmothers work as seamstresses, and she described how their work helped support their families.
They brought their families out of poverty through this job. So it’s something that I was always around.
Anna Venezuela
Anna studied in New York, an opportunity she described as significant for her and her family. At first, she did not imagine that she would follow her grandmothers into the same kind of work. She thought her ambitions should lead towards becoming a major fashion designer or working for a large fashion house.
Over time, she began to understand that the work she wanted to do was closer to home, but it could still be creative and entirely her own.
Through the process of knowing myself and discovering who I am, I discovered that I wanted to do the same thing that my grandmother was doing in a whole new way and in a way that felt that I could express my creativity.
Anna Venezuela
She spoke about the satisfaction of helping people recognise the value of the work her grandmother had done, and of bringing that value into the present.
I just love that I can show people the value of those things that my grandmother did in her time, just to value it again and love it again and enjoy it.
Anna Venezuela
There is something worth remembering here. Clothing repair is often treated as an inconvenience, while the fashion industry gives far more attention to new designs and new releases. Anna’s story places the skill of making and altering clothes back at the centre of fashion, and recognises the people whose work makes that possible.
Fashion Revolution campaigns for a fashion industry that respects people and the environment, including the workers behind the clothes we wear. Anna’s family story is personal testimony, not a formal study of garment labour. But it offers a human perspective on why making, repairing and caring for clothing deserve more recognition.
Why did Anna move away from producing a fashion collection?
Anna explained that Vana had operated as a fashion brand for more than seven years. The team used natural fibres, worked with slower production processes and offered a circular model in which customers could bring garments back for repair.
Even with those efforts, she found herself facing a contradiction. To make the business economically sustainable, it still needed to produce and sell enough clothing. The pressure to keep producing did not always sit comfortably with the reasons she had started the brand.
Even though we were doing every effort to make it sustainable, at the end of the day, we had to make mass productions of these clothes to make it sustainable also economically. We needed both things.
Anna Venezuela
She described feeling caught in a system that encouraged overproduction and selling, even when she sometimes questioned whether a customer actually needed another item. The business had started from something she loved, but the commercial pressure could make the work feel disconnected from its original purpose.
It was because we were part of a system in which we had to produce, overproduce and sell it.
Anna Venezuela, describing her experience of running the fashion brand
Anna explained that she eventually moved towards repairing clothes and offering personalised options to help customers build better relationships with what they owned. She wanted people to find their own language through clothing rather than buying things for outside validation.
Her experience is not proof that every clothing business must follow the same path. It is a first-hand account of a tension she experienced: even a brand making efforts to improve its materials and production methods can remain dependent on selling more products to stay financially viable.
The Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s work on circular textiles addresses the wider challenge of moving beyond a system based on producing, using and discarding clothing. Anna’s decision was her own response to that tension. Rather than claiming to have solved the industry’s problems, she focused on a different kind of relationship with customers and their existing clothes.
What did Anna want to do with the leftover fabric scraps?
Repair and upcycling can still leave scraps. Anna had kept the offcuts from the workshop rather than throwing them away, and she showed me how she was cutting them into smaller pieces.
So, I am a hoarder. I haven’t been able to throw away all the waste, and we came with this solution, cutting it really small like this. And eventually, what we want to do is save enough of this in order to make beds for dogs for foundations, because we really love people who rescue dogs and we thought this might be a good way to give purpose to all these little scraps.
Anna Venezuela
At the time of the interview, making dog beds was a plan, not a completed project that I can verify. Anna was collecting and preparing the scraps with the intention of saving enough material to make beds for animal-rescue organisations.
The idea raises a useful question about the material left over after the obvious repair options have been exhausted. Some scraps may be suitable for stuffing, patching or other uses, depending on their fibre content, cleanliness and condition. Others may not be appropriate for those purposes. Reusing offcuts can be worthwhile, but it does not eliminate the need to reduce waste at the point of production.
It is also a reminder that a circular approach has to account for what happens at every stage. A garment can be repaired, a second garment can be made from the remaining cloth, and there may still be scraps left over. The goal is not to claim that nothing will ever be wasted. It is to use materials thoughtfully and avoid treating disposal as the automatic answer.
People making upcycling practical: Reddit, YouTube and independent writers
Anna’s work is one example of a much wider community of people who repair, remake and alter clothes. Some share visible mending techniques; others turn second-hand garments into new designs, explain sewing methods or document their own DIY projects. These examples are useful for inspiration and learning, though an individual project is not, by itself, evidence of a measured environmental benefit.
Reddit: real people sharing repairs and experiments
r/Visiblemending is a community focused on repairs that are visible by design. People share patches, embroidery, darning and other ways to keep damaged clothes wearable. It is a useful place to see how a repair can become part of the look of a garment rather than something to hide.
r/Upcycling brings together projects that give existing materials a different purpose. For clothing-specific advice, r/sewing is another place to learn from people’s projects, construction questions and troubleshooting. These are community forums, so the quality of advice varies. Treat individual posts as personal experiences and check technical recommendations before applying them to delicate or valuable garments.
To make the distinction clear, these links lead to the communities rather than to specific Redditors whose individual posts have been independently verified for this article. They are useful starting points for finding firsthand projects, not substitutes for a named, documented case study.
YouTube: learning how to remake what you own
WithWendy shares sewing and garment-making projects, including the practical work of changing the fit and form of clothing. Her videos can help viewers understand the construction decisions behind a finished garment rather than seeing only the final result.
Coolirpa is known for clothing transformations and refashioning projects. BlueprintDIY also shares clothing alterations and DIY fashion projects. These creator channels offer visual examples of the skills involved in turning existing garments into something new.
As with any DIY content, a successful video does not establish that every project is cheaper, more durable or environmentally preferable to buying second-hand. The useful question is whether the technique can be adapted to a garment you already have, whether you will wear the result and whether the project avoids an unnecessary purchase.
Medium and Substack: independent writing on clothes and consumption
For essays and first-person accounts, Medium’s upcycling topic and Medium’s sustainable-fashion topic can lead readers to independent writers discussing clothing reuse, DIY projects and consumption. These are discovery pages, not individual articles or endorsements of every post listed there.
Substack’s search for fashion and upcycling is another starting point for finding independent newsletters and writers. Look for authors who document what they made, explain the process, show the original garment and discuss what worked or failed. Those details are more useful than a broad sustainability claim without evidence.
I have linked these discovery pages rather than inventing named posts or attributing unverified statements to individual writers. For publication, specific creator projects should be linked directly when their contents, authorship and relevance have been checked.
What does Anna recommend before buying more clothes?
Anna’s first recommendation was to look at what was already in the wardrobe. Before buying something new, she encouraged people to consider whether existing garments could be repaired or transformed.
If someone wants to be more fashion conscious, I would say the first thing to do and the main thing was that they should upcycle, because there are already materials in their closet waiting for them to have new lives. So that is the most sustainable option. These are things that already exist and that we can create and turn into something else.
Anna Venezuela
Anna also recommended natural fibres such as cotton, linen and hemp, and suggested buying locally where possible. These were her recommendations in our conversation, rather than a universal ranking of materials. A fibre’s environmental impact depends on how it is grown or produced, processed, dyed, transported, cared for and eventually handled at the end of its life. Natural fibres are not automatically the better choice in every circumstance, and a synthetic garment is not automatically something that should be discarded.
Her most consistent point was about overconsumption. Buying a more considered material does not solve the problem if the volume of clothing keeps increasing. In Anna’s view, a better relationship with clothes begins by buying less impulsively, caring for what we own and allowing time for repair or alteration instead of immediately replacing something.
She imagined a future in which people would become more involved in creating their garments, plan ahead and be more comfortable waiting for something to be made for them.
I feel like the problem, the main problem is like the immediacy, just wanting everything at the moment. And what I wish for the industry and for the world is for us to understand and to enjoy waiting.
Anna Venezuela
That idea is not about making clothing inaccessible or suggesting everyone has the money, time or sewing skills to commission a garment. It is about questioning the expectation that everything should be available instantly, cheaply and in unlimited quantities. Repair services, second-hand shops, community sewing groups and local makers can all offer alternatives, depending on what is available to each person.
A different relationship with the clothes we already own
What I took away from documenting Anna’s work was a shift in perspective. A damaged garment is not automatically useless. A small piece of fabric is not necessarily rubbish. A skill passed down through a family is not less valuable because it happens in a workshop rather than a major fashion house.
Anna’s approach did not promise that every garment could be rescued, or that one workshop could undo the impacts of the global fashion industry. It showed something more practical: a way to pause before discarding something, look closely at what remains and ask whether it could still have a life.
She showed me a vest made from two or three pairs of jeans. She described the sewing work Lily did to take garments apart and rebuild them. She looked at a damaged waistband and imagined different ways the trousers could be worn again. And she kept scraps that she hoped could eventually become beds for rescued dogs.
Vana has since closed, but this conversation remains a record of Anna’s work in Bogotá and the ideas that guided it. The vest, the damaged trousers and the fabric scraps all began with the same instinct: look at what you have before deciding you need something else.
Start with the fabric worth keeping, my loves. Before buying more, look at what is already in your wardrobe, what can be repaired and what might become something entirely different. Find more clothing stories in My Ideal World.