The RealReal’s Newest Upcycled Recollection Celebrates ‘Joy of Making’ – WWD

The RealReal’s design streak has not lost its edge, as evidenced by the latest Recollection dropping this week.

As with the previous launches, the newest edition, ReCollection 04 titled “The Joy of Making and Creating” is all designed and made in-house, numbering 90 pieces across styles (up from 83 for the previous collection). The brand-agnostic upcycled collection includes clothes and three accessories that range in price from $140 to $560, spanning sizes XS to XXXL. It will be available online and at The RealReal’s SoHo store starting Tuesday.

Noelle Sciacca, senior women’s fashion lead at The RealReal, said the collection speaks to the rise of demi-couture and the handmaking techniques gaining relevance among the sustainability set.

“We were challenging ourselves to work with pieces that were too damaged,” she told WWD. Results include seasonal transition pieces like crop tops and two-toned pants, much of which were reworked over the course of weeks from traditional menswear pieces. She called it the “antithesis of fast fashion” given the amount of time and artisanal techniques used to transform the clothes.

Sciacca said customers will want to use the “zoom-in” feature online to get a feel for the detailed overhaul throughout the collection. The collection features kitschy graphic patchwork, grunge safety pin details, Victorian-era embroidery and closure techniques all intended to celebrate the areas of damage.

Asked whether a ReCollection fashion show at any of the major stronghold cities is in store any time soon, Sciacca said it’s not without question. “We don’t have plans for that yet, but we definitely wouldn’t count anything out. Where we’re probably going to put some of our efforts going forward is in some of these collaborations with brands, but we’re continually challenging ourselves in what we can do in the world of upcycling.”

Though the project boasts upcycling chops, a collection of 90 repurposed items pales in comparison to the some 10,000 new items added to The RealReal every day.

“These are items that have no life as is,” Sciacca reiterated. “These are not ones that the hemline just needs to be tacked down or the button is loose. We couldn’t list ‘as is’ and would otherwise, potentially end up in landfills. [The collection] is very small compared to 10,000, but when you’re thinking this is something that is potentially dead otherwise, now it has an opportunity to have a new life.”

She called The RealReal’s Recollection efforts a broader brush stroke for systems change, with which colleague James Rogers, director of sustainability at The RealReal, agreed.

“It was our intention to demonstrate how unnecessary [waste] is, to test and prove the power of upcycling,” he said. “This in-house collection is the largest we’ve done yet, nearly double the size of ReCollection 01; we can proudly say this is the most positive impact ReCollection has had keeping items out of landfills and in circulation.”