Fiber artist Louise Silk and her daughter Sarah Silk were joined by a passion for fiber art and fabrics with history. When the duo decided to start a sustainable label offering 100% recycled clothes from reworked fabrics, denim was an obvious choice of raw material for them to start with. Drawn to its individual wabi-sabi aesthetic, durability and functionality, they created SilkDenim, a range of artistic, inventive garments – including pants, bags, and quilts – crafted exclusively from reworked denim in small scale in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Their whimsical, patchwork pieces challenge typical fashion boundaries by inviting imperfection, practicality, big playful shapes and sustainability all in one. We sat down with the founders of the young brand in their early beginnings to discuss their background and aspirations – and all things denim!
Tell us a few words about your background and what you were doing before SilkDenim.
Louise: I’m the mom; I’ve been a fiber artist for over forty years.
Sarah: I’m the daughter; I’ve been learning sewing, knitting, and embroidery from my mom since I was a kid.
The things we did before SilkDenim we still do.
Louise: I make quilts for exhibition and by commission, and I write and blog.
Sarah: I’m an actress working primarily in the theater.
What is your personal story about denim, and what attracted you to it in the first place?
We like causal comfortable clothing, and have always had a particular attraction to denim. The first products we created were from denim. We love its durability, character through wear and tear, down-to-earth attitude, weight and weave, and its American tradition.
The main materials you use for production are recycled and reworked fabrics. Is there a particular reason you became sensitive to this?
Yes – environmental and cultural issues are very important to us. We follow a business model in which ethics are paramount to decision-making. We do not want to contribute to the problems that result from our current consumer fast-fashion culture. In our fantasy world, everyone wears used, recycled or remade clothing. SilkDenim has inspired our own personal lives too. We now do things like use old t-shirts for rags, make denim waste basket liners, and rework our own old clothing into pieces we love instead of shopping.
From customizing a garment to utilizing an old pair of jeans, the client is heavily involved in your business. Was that your intention from the start or it happened along the way?
We realized with our very first collection that we enjoy being a small business who has the privilege of creating pieces tailored to the client’s wants/needs. There’s so much joy in interacting with a client and seeing their excitement and satisfaction – and how good they look in the clothes. Our best products have come from a client asking us to make something special for them. One of our favorite ways to collaborate is to remake a client’s favorite item from their closet by using that garment’s general pattern but making it out of denim in our own patchwork personalized style.
Could you please describe for us your creative process?
We start with a need or a desire for a kind of item, like a durable but cool bag for groceries or a comfy pair of pants, for example, and we begin to make and refine the piece, creating it over and over again until we have a finished product that works for us. Much work goes into deconstructing jeans, and figuring out how to reuse them. Another important part of the process is using the item ourselves to test out its practical use.
How do you feel about denim trends?
It’s fun for us – we love seeing denim. Sometimes we catch ourselves getting a little snooty about manufactured distressing vs. life-created wear or about someone doing something we’ve already done, but in the end it’s all good, because we love denim, and all ideas are recycled!
How about men’s denim?
We love seeing our clothing on men! Especially the Oh Yoko coat! Amazing. We want to make non-gendered unisex clothing. We plan to use men more in future photos, and try to make the clothes more clearly genderless.
How have you evolved since your launch – both business and design-wise?
We have only launched two collections, and we’re still evolving. We’re quicker to know what we like and don’t like. We’re enjoying the process design-wise more. We’re learning how to work as a mother-daughter team better. We’re doing more and more deconstruction of the recycled garment, allowing stitching and color variations and giving displaced pockets and removed waistbands more of the prominence they deserve. We feel like we only just fell into the rabbit hole, and a big adventure awaits us.
What is your ultimate goal for your business?
To see everyone using our Big Bag when shopping; to successfully create one-of-a-kind up-cycled unisex garments for every body type; to engage fashion in a new and different dialog.
www.silkdenim.us
Images © SilkDenim
