Fast, cheap, now – that’s how the global fashion industry gets the newest trends into stores. The result of that “fast fashion” ideology is inexpensive clothing that allows people to constantly reinvent themselves – and tons of discarded textiles. Off-cuts, surplus production and old clothing that has been thrown away pile up into alarming high mountains of waste, and modern fabrics often take hundreds of years to biodegrade. Estonian designer Reet Aus refuses to accept that. For a long time now, small labels have used old material to create new clothing – but is upcycling more than just a niche in the global fashion world? Reet Aus meets up with colleagues, cultural scientists and chemists. She traces the production of a pair of jeans back to Bangladesh – where she convinces the managers of the mass production company Beximco to enter into a cooperative venture.