London Repair Week 2026: Alterist Hosts Upcycling Workshop with Kabo

On 15 February 2026, we were invited by London Recyclers’ to kick off Repair Week with an upcycling workshop, hosted inside the beautiful space of Give Your Best charity store.

The shirts were donated by a luxury formal wear rental platform, pieces no longer suitable for re-rental, now given a second life through repair and creative reuse. Leading the workshop was Katy, founder and designer of Kabo Clothing.  

Katy guided participants through a process of transformation using rivets, holes, metal rings, and intentional cut-outs to reshape and give a new life to the shirts. The aim of the workshop is to show how you can manipulate structure and silhouette without the need for a sewing machine.  

We were joined by Raya (Where is Raya), Cydonie, Sara Roudbari, Polin Belenchuk, Elyse Blackshaw, Nerrisa Pratt, Lara Oztekin, Holly Gardner, Man Yee Woo, Alana The Food Baddie, Sama (Sama Speaks), Lauren (Sewing Bee), Maddie (Lesser Known London), Tea (Teadayblogs), Amanda Costa and Nige (Travel With Nige) — some of the leading voices in sustainability across fashion, food, lifestyle and beyond. We loved seeing their creativity come to life on the night! 

Elyse Blackshaw (@elyseblackshaw) was even later spotted by Vogue, captured as the “The Best Street Style in London Fashion Week” wearing her reworked creation!

After the workshop, we gifted participants Sahiko sewing kits created by White Weft, a denim design studio specialising in repair, upcycling, and circular denim design, led by Janelle Hanna, author of Jean Genius and one of the very first brands to join Alterist when we started building this community.

About London Recycles' Repair Week: 

Repair Week is designed to inspire us all to ‘think repair’ and either learn how to fix more of our stuff ourselves, or find local repair businesses or community groups who can fix them on our behalf -  all in the name of saving money, helping to fight climate change and falling back in love with things we haven’t used for ages. It is run by London Recycles.

About Give Your Best:

Give Your Best an award-winning social enterprise tackling clothing poverty while advancing circular fashion. Through their online clothing donation platform, it redistributes quality garments to women and children facing crisis — bridging the gap between fashion waste and social need.

The Impact of Upcycling:

Repair Week exists to shift behaviour: from throwing away to fixing, from replacing to reworking. It’s a reminder that what we already own still has value.

That’s why we love upcycling. It takes something ordinary, like a pre-loved white shirt and gives it a second life! It’s restructured, reimagined and revalued. 

But it’s not just about the fresh look; by upcycling, we’re also able to make an impact.

Making a new cotton shirt takes thousands of litres of water, energy, transport and labour across global supply chains. And when a garment is thrown away, the impact doesn’t disappear. If it’s incinerated, it releases around 2.94kg of CO₂ per kilogram of textile burned. 

For this workshop, we reworked 17 pre-loved shirts.

That means:

• 4.25kg of textile waste kept in circulation

• Around 12.5kg of CO₂e avoided

• Approximately 17,000 litres of water saved

If you’d like to take part in a future workshop or event, explore what’s coming up here.