REC – REcycled Clothing - is a prêt-à-porter clothing collection made with recyclables.  All pieces are made from clothing and accessories that are damaged or simply unwanted. REC transforms and re-uses. The making and building of each piece of clothing varies on a case-to-case basis, even though there is some systematization of the recycling process. At the end, each piece is necessarily unique and exclusive. Quality, creativity and functionality are the pillars of this collection.
 
This project is born from a practical sense and from a higher necessity of having a balance between the environment, design and innovation.  The preoccupation with environmental sustainability allied with a high sense of life quality and with our consummist society, mandates a deep reflection about the new century products. We like to re-think the way we interact with the materials and with people.
 
We believe that all products have its value – both material and personal – and we valorize the resources and the energy spent in each and one of them, for today and tomorrow.  For this reason, REC does not “go on sale” - all products are equally valuable and priced fairly.

REC has only one collection per year spring-summer-autumn-winter, with two seasonal releases, in accordance with the commercial calendar and the predicted climate.  This choice basis itself on a worry to develop long lasting ideas, with the necessary timings involved for the maturation and “digestion” of the concepts and projects in question.
 
We want to develop new products responsibly. Recycling has innumerous advantages, from the reduction of the extraction of virgin materials to the reduction on the pressure that those types of activities suffer from the society. Recycling diminishes the number of clothes that end in landfills, where they become highly polluent materials, contaminating the soil, the water and the air. It also reduces the need for landfills themselves. In fact, the whole process of recycling is cleaner than the conventional, saving energy on the extraction, manufacture, transport, and a bit on every phase that a mass product needs to go through.
 
The collection of prime materials is done at the atelier, benefiting from different sources of donations: clients, friends and sympathizing people.  One day, we hope to enjoy the use of an institutionalized system of collection, organized by the autarchies and with a common interest. We are already contributing for that objective.

The recycling of clothing also allows for something unique, the incorporation of objects that mean something to the designer and to the consumer. It adds value and meaning to the work developed, offering a more personalized perspective and recovering history, experiences and past life.

REC,

REC is a project conceptualized and directed by Joana Teodoro. Joana Teodoro has a Bachelor degree in Fashion Design by the Technical University of Lisbon- School of Architecture. She did an internship in an Industrial Design Office in Oporto and, soon after, had the opportunity to start a new clothing brand Agência 117, within the store Agência 117, in Lisbon. Following this project, Joana Teodoro started a collaboration with the company Storytailors, where she developed the commercial clothing line Narkë. It is then that she starts working for herself, creating Ladybug, a clothing and accessories brand that reflects her own ideas of design: the search for simple products, where the finishings are very detailed and where the colors normally reflect her innate optimism. Recycling appears throughout her path, from her love for antique clothing and from a need to search for a deeper meaning on her projects.  Researching became a privileged tool and the development of a new concept of idealizing and producing a prêt-a-porter line is now turning into reality with REC.