Small Business: Upcycling - Fiona Clements, Senorita AweSUMO

Fiona Clements, founder and designer at Senorita AweSUMO.

Small business editor Caitlin Sykes this week interviews a handful of small business owners about upcyling.

Fiona Clements is the founder and designer at Dunedin-based fashion brand Senorita AweSUMO.

Can you tell me about Senorita AweSUMO and how upcycling relates to what you do?

Senorita AweSUMO is a zero-waste textile solution to the global problem of overconsumption in the fashion industry. In producing my clothing, I upcycle textile waste, use old garments and repurpose vintage fabrics to create higher quality garments. I also use techniques like zero-waste patternmaking, where the pattern you use to create a garment produces no material waste. At the moment, the brand is sold through Guild, which is a retail and gallery space for designers in Dunedin.

Another part of my work is creating textile art, like the upcycled cloak I made for Dunedin's Robbie Burns statue as part of iD Dunedin Fashion Week this year, and I'm also starting to teach some classes in upcycling, and how to make everyday household items that can save a whole bunch of waste.

Where did the idea for the business come from?

It was when I was in my second year at fashion school; I studied at Otago Polytechnic, and graduated in 2011. I was seeing how much waste was being put in the bin by my classmates, so I started collecting it and using it as my resource.

I also began researching waste streams and found that commercial manufacturers waste was around 15 per cent, and that can vary from eight to 30 per cent depending on the pattern and the lay. I could see this waste was actually a great resource and shouldn't end up in the landfill.

Another thing I saw was the amount of waste going through our local clothing dump stores and found it hard to believe that Dunedin's textile waste to landfill had tripled since 2006.

What have been some of the particular challenges for you working in the upcycling space?

Marketing is a challenge. A lot of people see this work as dirty because you're using someone else's discards, and there's still the perception around upcycling being a hippie thing. I really think more work needs to be done to change these kinds of perceptions because zero-waste processes and upcycling are about more than that. These kinds of processes use new fabrics that are offcuts from commercial manufacturing as well as vintage and op shop finds to produce good quality items.

What have you found helpful to communicate that message to consumers?

You have to tell the story behind the items and be transparent. I can do that in the retail space where my garments are sold, and I also talk about this subject a lot around Dunedin and in the media. I think as people hear more about these concepts, it's changing perceptions. I see there's a lot more awareness surrounding ethical and fairtrade-making since Fashion Revolution Day, and people are starting to ask more questions of their retailers.

What's next for the business?

I'm looking for a seamstress to help increase my production and I also need to find the right place to stock my work in the North Island. Ultimately, Senorita AweSUMO will be an international zero-waste brand, but it's slowly and surely; the only hurry in slow fashion is to get people more aware of #whomademyclothes. Internationally, there are already people doing great things in this space, like zero-waste fashion designers Orsola de Castro and Daniel Silverstein. At the moment, New Zealand isn't a leader in this area, but I think we could be.