Young Designer Turns High-End Scraps Into Gorgeous Garments

Waste not, want not. That’s the motto of 29-year-old designer Henry Hales who’s shaking up the London fashion scene by making eye-catching menswear using surplus fabric from high-end shirtmakers and tailors. Hales came up with the concept for his sustainable label — cleverly dubbed Sir Plus (“the name’s helped a huge amount,” he says) — in 2010. He initially set out to launch a bold boxer shorts line, but custom-printing his own fabrics proved too costly. After more research and a fortuitous stroll down London’s Jermyn Street, he discovered that factories and tailors often have piles of leftover material lying about. “Originally, it was just me getting on the tube with a suitcase, going around collecting small bits of fabric,” the fresh-faced designer tells Alexa. “[The shirtmakers] thought it was crazy that I’d publicize what I was doing. But in my mind, it makes it more premium — it’s more original, it’s more sustainable. We can get a boxer short out of just 55 centimeters of fabric.” Read more at New York Post.