Judith Paris is surrounded by pairs of jeans: skinny, boyfriend, bootleg, high-waisted. They all have a distinctive label with the word ‘REissue’ sewn on the pocket. Some have been distressed, others embellished with beads and one pair has bright pink arrows stitched down the leg.
The jeans have all been saved from landfill and ‘upcycled’, to be sold on the Big Issue’s new online shop. The homelessness charity has partnered with Judith’s social enterprise, Thrifty Couture, to try and give clothes shopping a “social echo”. For £125, customers can order a bespoke pair of jeans which Judith and her team will tailor and customise to order.
“There is this treadmill mentality with what I call ‘fast fashion’, which says every six months we need to reinvent the look,” she explains in her studio, a once-abandoned community centre on an Islington housing estate, which is now full of colourful cloth and rails of upcycled clothes.
“But what we do here is take a piece of clothing that already exists, and instead of throwing it away and replacing it with something new, we just adapt it and make it look like something else. It is couture and bespoke but it’s not expensive. Hence the name Thrifty Couture.”
Talking about waste in the fashion industry clearly frustrates Judith. “Just looking at London, about 50,000 pieces of clothing – from socks to coats – are thrown away every 10 minutes. It’s just crazy. And that craziness has got to be controlled. We have got sufficient clothes, already made, to keep every single resident of London clothed for the next 20 years,” she says, pulling at her hair in desperation.
Judith founded Thrifty Couture three years ago, with the aim to encourage localised production and train people in the skills needed to make that happen. She works mostly with school children and young unemployed people and will be taking on several apprentices over the next year. She says she was lucky her mum taught her to sew at a young age.
“When I was about three my mum had an old Singer sewing machine and I would crawl all over the pedal – mum would nearly loose her hand when it suddenly started whirring. So she started to teach me how to use it out of frustration.
“When I was older I used to rip my school uniform apart and take my skirt right up to my waist and get sent home for it. The headmistress would call my mum and say ‘have you seen what your daughter has done to her skirt?’ And my mum would just say ‘yes, but did you see the fantastic workmanship?’ She always thought that was much more important.”
As Judith starts showing off the clothes designed by her after-school group, her partner Jean-Pierre bursts into the studio and begins chatting away in French. “Sorry about him,” Judith says. “He’s a stubborn Breton who refuses to learn English so he teaches cooking lessons in the kitchen next door. He’s very demonstrative so it seems to work fine.”
The couple plan to move back to Brittany soon, where Judith wants to replicate the success of Thrifty Couture and the two other social enterprises she runs. Her first job, which lasted ten years, was working for a cruise liner and she is keen to start a new adventure abroad.
“I went around the world a couple of times with my first job, from Antarctica to south-east Asia. I used to collect all sort of textiles and materials and just hoard all these beautiful fabrics from around the world. I also had a fantastic wardrobe; summer clothes, winter clothes and so many evening dresses.”
Judith cut up her first wardrobe, dating back to her cruise liner days, to make Thrifty Couture’s first collection. “It all was chopped up,” she said. “Bar a few choice pieces which I’ve wrapped in tissue paper and I’m not telling anyone where they are.”
Although Judith’s passion is upcycling old clothes, she clearly admires good quality high-fashion brands. On the dusty studio floor there are a pair of black patent Louboutin stilettos, with the trademark red sole. “Look at these,” she exclaims. “Aren’t they just beautiful?” She says her favourite brand is Belstaff, an old British company which makes leather biker jackets costing up to £1,500.
“My mother always taught me to buy the best that I could afford and cherish it. I always try and do that. If more people did that then maybe we wouldn’t be in this constant cycle of waste.”
