Upgrading and remaking denim
It was when China refused to accept textile waste from other countries that Chen fully realized the seriousness of the situation in Taiwan. “In the future, the problem of textile trash will become increasingly severe.” There will be no place to send clothing collected for recycling, so all the textile waste will be concentrated in Taiwan itself. This thought moved her to found Story Wear.
The fabric for Story Wear clothing comes mainly from recycled jeans donated by businesses. After being cleaned, the material is remanufactured into fashionable denim jackets, long skirts, splice dresses, overcoats, cloth backpacks, computer bags, and even small products like tumbler totes, key chains, and tissue packages.
“The most difficult thing is that you have to completely take the jeans apart, right down to single pieces of cloth.” After the “street-corner seamstresses” who work with Story Wear receive the denim material, which is tough, wash resistant, and holds its shape, they must first remove all the stitching, which is a major task. “Street-corner seamstresses” is a pet name bestowed on these women by Chen, but in fact they are a group of courageous women who love hand tailoring and are in their second careers, are disadvantaged, or have disabled children at home.
To give the seamstresses a model to work from, Kuan Chen first makes a design and creates a sample. Based on the sample, the seamstresses then select cloth of similar pattern and type from piles of materials of different colors and thicknesses. They have to pay careful attention in order to accurately match the color and make sure the grain of the cloth runs in the right direction before they can then assemble the new piece of clothing by hand.
When Story Wear customers buy their products they can see on the labels information such as “Recycled denim, cloth waste, cotton,” “Handmade in 24 hours,” and the handwritten signature of the seamstress.
A unique ID for every garment
“The raw materials are different for each item of clothing, so the colors and patterns of the finished products are all different.” Information about the production process is printed on the label for everyone to see. “In this way people can be sure that the workers have not been exploited,” says Chen.
Since the brand was founded in 2018, Story Wear has remanufactured 2408 pairs of jeans, representing more than 2000 pairs that would otherwise have been discarded. Also, they bring in an average of 50,000 orders per month for other items made from recycled denim, creating numerous jobs for disadvantaged women.
Story Wear founder Kuan Chen (left) has a background in the fashion industry. Seeing the many problems generated by this industry, she decided to dedicate her life to reducing its environmental impact. (photo by Lin Min-hsuan)