2025 Recap: Community, Collaboration and Upcycling

Growing The Alterist Community

This year, the Alterist community grew to 200+ upcycle designers across the UK and EU!

We did a six-month residency at Camden Open Air Gallery, turning the space into a rotating hub for upcycled fashion, live customisation and events. Each month introduced new designers and new work, creating a space where people can see designers turning clothes into wearable art in real time.

 Take a look at some of the highlights here

Our pop-up at Selfridges marked a major milestone for Alterist. Bringing upcycled fashion into one of the world’s leading department stores showed that circular design can sit confidently within mainstream retail.

See the Alterist at ReSelfridges pop-up in action here

Check out the Hackney Baths pop up here 

At Hackney Baths, we brought upcycling into a historic public space and community, hosting a pop-up and hands-on activations that invited people to engage directly with repair, customisation and reuse. Finally, at Fashion District, we joined the wider creative community for their third festival with a curated pop-up, workshops and live activations. 

See some of the highlights from the Fashion District Pop Up here

Check out the workshops from Fashion District here 

Upcycle Fashion Collaborations & Projects

We also collaborated with some incredible brands, creating new collections, hosting workshops and helping them find value in their discarded materials.

We hosted upcycling workshops inside the BYREDO Soho store to mark the launch of their BLANCHE perfume line, working directly with their community to explore creativity, repair and reuse.

Check out the Alterist x Byredo Activation captured by Immo Klink here  

With ReLondon, we transformed surplus and pre-loved materials into a new upcycled tote collection for the Love Not Landfill campaign, pairing each product with transparent impact data to show the environmental value of upcycling. 

We partnered with Camden Council to bring live upcycling to the high street, “Turning Street Art into Streetwear” as part of Camden’s wider fashion and cultural celebrations.

See the ReLondon Project on Instagram here 

Love Candem Recap on Instagram here 

Alongside these activations, we hosted a live panel discussion, Is the Future of Fashion Upcycled?, at Second Home Spitalfields. The event brought together designers, activists and industry voices, including Orsola de Castro, Stuart Trevor, UIIBA Club and Slow Projects, hosted by Gemma Metheringham. The conversation explored whether upcycling can scale without losing its integrity, the role of storytelling and community in shifting fashion culture, and how legacy brands and grassroots movements can learn from one another.

See the highlights from the Second Home Panel here 

Being Recognised For Our Work

Along the way, Alterist was:

• Named one of Entrepenur.com’s Top 100 Startups in London

• Shortlisted for Drapers’ One to Watch Award

• Nominated for The Häagen-Dazs Rose Project: Top 50 Inspiring Women

• Selected to take part in EIT Culture & Creativity and the Startup Discovery School accelerator programmes

A BIG Thank You

Thank you to the makers, partners and community who showed up this year, whether that was designing, customising, collaborating, or simply choosing upcycled fashion over new.

We’re heading into the next year focused on the same mission we’ve always believed in: using creativity to reduce textile waste!

Alterist