Zero-waste design and upcycling shape sustainable fashion communities

When Jamie Naval started her career as a budding textile designer in Rizal, the garment capital of the Philippines, she didn’t just witness first-hand the sheer volume of waste being churned out by the fashion industry—she sought solutions by repurposing excess fabric into handcrafted toys, and eventually launched Barrio Studios in 2023, a social enterprise that reclaimed and recycled pre-consumer textile waste.

Soon enough, Barrio hit a roadblock as their storage and processing capacity couldn’t keep pace with textile waste collection. To expand capacity, Barrio partnered up with ANTHILL Fabric Gallery, a Cebu-based ethical fashion and cultural enterprise that has pioneered fabric waste upcycling since 2016. The partnership proved to be a turning point for both: not only did it allow Barrio to expand its processing capacity and reintegrate reclaimed materials back into the market, but it ultimately led to Barrio’s acquisition by ANTHILL, which was announced last February. 

Through joint efforts, ANTHILL and Barrio have reclaimed more than 24,000 kilograms of textiles to date, far exceeding Barrio’s initial goal of 5,000 kilograms. Out of the reclaimed textiles, 18,070 kilograms have been recycled and upcycled into new fabrics, uniforms, corporate giveaways, and other merchandise, helping businesses close supply chain loops.

“There is power in numbers,” says Anya Lim, co-founder and managing director of ANTHILL. “With Barrio’s and our portfolios combined, we can present more compelling data to potential clients. By joining forces, we can also magnify our impact, as well as the services and products we can offer.”

The new combined initiative, known as ANTHILL Circularity Hub, aims to open up a new space in Manila by the end of 2025, training 10 weavers on zero-waste weaving techniques, adding to its existing community of 15 zero-waste weavers based in Argao, Cebu. “Capacity building is a big part of our process,” adds Naval, now a managing partner at ANTHILL since the acquisition. “We want to make sure our values are aligned across our production partners and weavers, so they understand why we value the scraps, and why we want to produce in a zero-waste way.”

ANTHILL has been just one of a few trailblazers in the textile recycling and upcycling industry across the country. Other notable players include Rags2Riches, which offers a wider range of retail products, but also works with large corporations such as IKEA Philippines to provide consumer-facing sewing and alteration services. Bayo, a homegrown fashion brand that joined the United Nations Global Compact initiative in 2020, has recently launched a partnership with the Department of Science and Technology – Philippine Textile Research Institute, to convert post-industrial fabric scraps into new yarns.

To neutralize the estimated 267,111 tons—and likely more—of textile waste generated in the Philippines each year, however, current initiatives across private and public sectors are of course far from sufficient. For organizations like ANTHILL, meaningful and long-term partnerships are a key factor for growth. “You can’t be a lone player in the circularity space,” says Lim. “Now we are barely able to create a dent, but together with big corporations who have more power and resources, we can at least move forward in advocacy and in presenting solutions.” 

That said, establishing long-term partnerships could prove challenging, as many businesses are still in an exploratory stage when it comes to sustainability. Due to a lack of understanding in sustainable and circular processes, full commitment among enterprise clients can be rare. “They don’t understand if it’s [made out of] ‘trash’, why it isn’t cheap,” says Lim. “Some clients are just happy to donate, and think they’ve done enough by just donating [fabric waste]… It comes down to educating the client, and having a circularity champion within their organizations.”

Irene Subang, an experimental sustainable fashion designer, and instructor at iACADEMY and SoFA Design Institute, also points to education as a key starting point in shifting both professional practices and public perceptions of sustainability. “The way fashion students are taught now, they need to work on new, whole fabrics,” says Subang. “Nobody teaches zero-waste pattern making at fashion schools [in the Philippines] yet… So when you introduce upcycling or zero-waste design, students can get confused and give up. A good start would be putting zero-waste design in the syllabus.” 

Similarly, it’s critical for brands and designers who focus on sustainability to interact directly with customers, strengthening the message of why and how they make clothes in unconventional ways. “Customers often don’t understand the design process of something that’s upcycled, deconstructed and reconstructed, vs. something that’s conventionally made,” says Subang, adding that communicating those nuances could help shift consumer behavior, and eventually lead to a wider adoption of sustainable alternatives.

For now, one encouraging sign is that, in addition to schools and companies, a broader alliance of stakeholders are joining in on the sustainability advocacy. For years, a key initiative for ANTHILL has been nurturing its community of proud weavers—currently there are around 15 independent local and international brands in its network that integrate ANTHILL’s weaves in end products. “More than just customers, they are our circularity advocates who share our values and tell our stories the best,” says Lim. “My dream is for us to be able to build the numbers together to affect policy change shortly.”

In recent years, like-minded sustainability advocates have increasingly come together to share knowledge, expertise, or simply for much-needed moral support. For Subang, being one of the few zero-waste practitioners in the still largely traditional local fashion industry can sometimes feel lonely. “But I think now we are starting to have a community,” she observes. “And because of this community, the idea of sustainability gets to spread further.” 

Jessie Jiang

Philippine Daily Inquirer

Asia News Network