Rewilder

“Zero waste originals” - this is how founder Jenny hopes to reinvent fashion, by creating modern design bags from 100% salvaged materials. After realizing how much waste gets produced in a normal fashion lifecycle, she decided to forgo her career in architecture and rather used her experience in this field to create #betterbags.

What inspired you to start your company/brand?

Rewilder revolves around transforming industrial waste into eco-friendly bags. Working 15 years in architecture and material development, I was frustrated with the amount of waste I was seeing, and was looking for a more responsible path. While teaching a Materials Innovation class at Art Center, I came across an industrial filter cloth material being thrown away on a massive scale. Rewilder was born around this first material, and the realization that as a designer I could make meaningful change in the way we look at materials.

Why did you choose the specific industry your brand is in?

The materials we look for are high performance fabrics that lend themselves to soft goods. We quickly recognized the potential for fashion to drive change, as it’s an industry that makes people do strange things, be outside of the normal. We use our fashion platform to encourage consumers to change their relationship with all their stuff.

What did you do before starting your business?

My previous life was in Architecture, founding the Architectural Division inside of a large manufacturing company. I worked with a team of engineers and fabricators to solve complex architectural projects – new material development, hardware, structural systems, and lighting – innovative experience that became the basis for Rewilder.

Describe a memory or an a-ha moment you had and how you felt?

Learning about the beer filter material and its life cycle was the ah-ha moment. A single large brewery trashes 2 tons of this material every 3 days (that’s 250 tons annually!). It’s an incredibly unique and beautiful material, with patina from filtering hops and barley, and it was shocking to learn that it’s thrown away.

What’s the most important thing you attribute to your success?

Persistence, Innovation, Collaboration.

Persistence because it’s really hard to start a small business, and especially hard to differentiate yourself in a saturated market. There were many hurdles and uncertainties, and we had to trust in ourselves to keep at it, knowing this is important and worth the work. Innovation because we have to constantly think outside the box, rethinking the entire way that materials are used and the potential of materials that are typically considered trash. Finding new materials to work with is detective work, constantly exploring unusual places. Collaboration because we rely on companies to partner with, like the Hollywood Bowl, Subaru, and CHNGE. These are forward thinking projects that recognize the many impacts (economic / equity / environmental) of diverting materials from the landfill and giving them a valuable second life.

Where do you see your company in 5 years?

Rewilder is leading the way toward a culture where we use and re-use materials that are already here, rather than making new. Over the next years, we want to build a conscious brand leading a truly zero-waste design model, grow a sustainable and local manufacturing facility, and partner with companies to divert massive amounts of material from the landfill.