Mitra Chester, a Eugene fashion designer and employee at St. Vincent de Paul, stands in her studio surrounded by trash that she excitedly works with everyday. “Over here I have ski poles, a typewriter, an adding machine, discarded art, bashed up lampshades, remnants from the San Francisco garment district, old ties, bed skirts, fire hose, silverware, film . . .,” she lists. “These are just some of the materials I get to work with.” Chester is part of the DIY movement taking on the challenge of creating “upcycled” fashion. She defines upcycling as taking an object that is no longer valued for its original use and turning it into something completely new and valuable. And although having an in-house designer for a thrift store seems unnecessary, the concept of upcycling helps take the old and flip it into something new within the nonprofit.“Basically I get to transform trash into cool things that people would want to buy.”
Chester’s office is full of these various materials just waiting to be turned into a new valuable object. Stacks of “trash art,” as she calls it, are piling in one corner of her office which will be turned into anything from lampshades to tote bags to pillow cases. She turns scratched records into earrings using a laser cutter, or sews neckties into pouches. She has even designed bathing suits and dresses using scratch fabric and donated bed skirts. Her energy is infectious as she paces around the studio pulling out handmade rings made from foreign currency and coasters made from maps.
These items seem unlikely to come about for most people, but Chester has no problem collecting her materials because of her job. “I got involved with St. Vincent de Paul by meeting with Terry [McDonald], the director, and talking about my work in upcycled fashion and I walked out of that meeting with this job,” she says.
What Chester lacks in formal training, she makes up for in experience, she’s been a creator and a designer from a young age. Her mother, who worked as a seamstress, and her father, who was a craftsman originally, inspired her love for design. “I got these skills just from growing up with them and having the resources,” she says. She has specifically been interested in the concept of upcycling for most of her designing career as well. ”I grew up pretty poor, so I just kind of used what we had because I couldn’t go out and buy new stuff. I like to redesign things rather than just making stuff from scratch because I’m pretty impatient.”
Her goal for upcycling is to insert the design method into mainstream culture, but that goal is facing the obstacle that is the current state of the movement. One of the biggest obstacles it faces is the financial burden is brings. Upcycling is expensive and takes a lot of time. It requires manpower to re-calibrate machines for each unique item that is used, so streamlining production is difficult to do. Expanding upcycling also means finding responsible distributors to preserve the good effect it has in the community. “We want things to be made locally or help places that are in need of work,” Chester says. “We have a multi-pronged mission in terms of what we are trying to do. We’re doing something that’s not really being done on a larger scale.”
With consumers starting to demand more sustainable products as well as products that positively impact the community, she thinks that upcycling will begin to take off soon. Upcycling is hard work, but Chester is passionate about her cause and is happy to be doing her dream job. “It’s a great artistic challenge to take something that exists and find a new use for it. I always like challenging myself artistically and creatively.”