0:00  
To cut the sleeves off, turn it into a vest. You know when you modify these things they just, they come up so nice. 

0:16  
A vintage denim jacket, a pair of summer shorts and a chunky knit sweater. These are three of many specimens that Kat Palmer has on the chopping block. 

0:28  
Just put the thread through the sheet. Yeah, like it can sew through like heavy fabric.

0:36  
Working in her basement in Woodstock an hour away from Toronto. Palmer frankensteins old pieces of clothing to make garments entirely unique for her company, Fred and Bean. Her creative process of making something old into something new is quite different to your everyday fashion designer.

0:54  
When we very first started it was kind of like, okay, let's take every piece of clothes we're going to do something with it, we can turn something into everything. So then you come to realize, okay, I have to look at things differently. I have to categorize them. I have to see and you start to be able to template what you can do with certain pieces, but then you get your one of a kind gems that it's like, oh my god, what the hell is this? You know, and we have fun with those too. Actually had an issue with a white jacket that rusted out, and I got the perfect white paint, and I painted the color and brought it right back. You know, sometimes when you get this thrift stuff there's a it was either unloved or there's an issue with it.

1:34  
For four years, Palmer has been in the business of upcycling old clothing into new trendy pieces. Ironically enough when she graduated from her fashion program, she had no intention of partaking in the mainstream fashion business.

1:48  
So I graduated from Fanshawe for fashion. I never went in there with any desire of being a fashion designer. I don't really consider myself competitive. I know it's a cutthroat industry. I don't really care to make dresses, so my label right off the bat was always kind of an anti-fashion label. More interested in doing something else with the skills that I've acquired.

2:14  
Palmer doesn't work alone. She employs a few seamstresses to help her suit her designs. Meet Sandra, one of Palmer's contracted seamstress says the works in Orangeville an hour away from Woodstock. She worked for Palmer for more than a year and is grown accustomed to how her boss works.

2:32  
First, I thought I was doing well, but she always found something that I could improve. I think her staff is, it's so well made that I didn't want to make any mistakes.

2:44  
With the label of anti-fashion sewn into her work, Palmer didn't adopt a sustainable way of thinking later on into her business.

2:52  
So unlike some businesses where they're incorporating sustainability, my small business was founded on the waste in the unwanted materials. I think that people really need to reduce how much they're purchasing. You know, they work too hard for $20 an hour. We're so focused on people making $2 an hour or less, but really, we work just as hard comparatively for $20 an hour to blow it on stuff that we don't need. So we're, you know, in a way, just as trapped. You see it a lot too with purses and belts, the quality and the uniqueness like a belt would have its own custom buckle and feature and like that was all made specific for that style. You know, like, it wasn't all about so much mass production. It was about quality and uniqueness and what's going to make what I'm making stand out.

3:49  
Like Palmer, Sandra didn't know much about sustainable fashion. But as soon as she started working for Palmer, she's become a fan of making clothes from old fabrics.

3:58  
Let me just get me the first day. We make contact. She's like, okay, I'm gonna come up to you and I'm gonna bring you a couple of things to see what you can do. The fabrics I was like, oh, this looks like old school polyester type of fabric. And then she explained to me what she stand by and that really fascinated me about Kat because fashion today, you know, like it's got to be very new.

4:28  
Palmer doesn't even throw her scraps away.

4:32  
People don't think they don't realize that upcycling creates waste. It does just does and a couple years ago, I designed a punching bag and the fill was our scrap

4:47  
For RSJ radio, I'm Sophie Diego.