Fashion Business Commons^™

Upscaling Textile Upcycling, Mason Scott, Brett High, Sophia Marcum, Rachel Schiffli, Andrew Flowers

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Our research project was designed to answer one question: is it feasible for the Goodwill Industries of Akron to use upcycled clothing as a sustainable revenue driver to fund their mission? Upcycled products are simply defined as products whose value has been increased by combination or alteration. This contrasts with product reuse or recycling which Goodwill already utilizes as ways to generate revenue. Goodwill’s primary source of revenue currently is the resale of donated goods at their brick-and-mortar stores, and we thought that upcycled goods were consistent with their established business model. We hypothesized that the same consumers that presently …