Spotlight On: Nicole McLaughlin - The Calendar Magazine

Nicole McLaughlin is not your average upcycler. For one thing, there’s the materials that she uses; tennis balls, Lego, vegetable peelers and croissants and all been whipped up into her functional, one-off art pieces. She’s transformed Hermes bags into utility waistcoats, Nike baseball caps into folding chairs and seeded bagels, complete with cream cheese, into a bra coined the Bragel. Then there’s the fact that she rarely sells her pieces, instead photographing them for her ever-growing Instagram following before breaking them down and reusing the parts for the next project – or eating them. “The goal with my work was never to sell it,” explains McLaughlin. “It was always just for me to create something that was inspiring. I wanted to take existing materials and try to rework them into something that feels new, that has a new purpose, and it was just a fun challenge for me to try to figure it out.”

Toy Trousers. Upcycler Nicole McLaughlin explains how she began transforming everything from baseball caps to croissants into one-off art pieces.

Camel Bak Water Jacket. Upcycler Nicole McLaughlin explains how she began transforming everything from baseball caps to croissants into one-off art pieces.

Images courtesy of Nicole McLaughlin

An avid rock climber, McLauglin loves the outdoors so uses technical fabrics, practicality and multiple pockets as her touchstones alongside a much sought-after sportswear aesthetic and a tongue in cheek playfulness. She never planned to work in fashion; a trained graphic designer, she worked on the corporate side of a big sportswear brand for a few years out of college, the upcycling a personal project sparked by the amount of waste she saw in the industry that was confined to evenings and weekends until, in 2019, she quit her job to focus on it full time. She’s learnt her technical skills through trial and error and the help of her sister, a knitwear fashion designer, and credits the freedom of her New Jersey upbringing by her mother, an interior designer and her father, a carpenter, for the curiosity that’s got her here. “It was really cool growing up because anytime I would want to play with tools, my grandfather and my father would never give me plastic ones, they’d give me a real hammer and nails and be like, here you go, go build something,” she says. “I always felt like I could explore any weird ideas that I had.”

“I know that a lot of brands are trying to work towards more sustainable goals but they can't necessarily change their entire business model overnight.”

Nicole McLaughlin

McLauglin is still blindsided that something that she quietly started for herself has gained so much traction. “Even though it’s been a couple years now it still always surprises me how many people are interested and how many people feel like they were inspired to want to do similar things,” she says. “I feel really lucky.” She has no plans to start her own label, despite so much clamouring for her creations, given the challenges of scaling up her handcrafted process. Instead, she creates bespoke pieces for artists like Kanye West, Travis Scott and ASAP Rocky and partners with existing labels and companies – to date she’s worked with Prada, Hermes, Puma, Polaroid, Arc’teryx and more – to transform their deadstock and waste materials and help push them towards greater sustainability. “I try to be a liaison between consumer and brand because I understand both sides of it,” she says. “I know that a lot of brands are trying to work towards more sustainable goals but they can’t necessarily change their entire business model overnight. And consumers are like, well, why don’t you just become more sustainable? So, I’m always trying to help with that conversation and put the pressure on brands to make better decisions.”

Heel portable charger shoe. Upcycler Nicole McLaughlin explains how she began transforming everything from baseball caps to croissants into one-off art pieces.

Images courtesy of Nicole McLaughlin

McLaughlin hosts regular upcycling workshops in her New York studio and is creating a foundation to help partner brands with fashion students and schools who can make use of their leftover materials. She’s trying to create jobs, too; to date she’s made every piece herself but the project has grown enough, now, that she’s looking for interns and assistants. “I always just want to be a resource,” she says, “so even if people just want to come to use the machines or use the materials that I have at my studio, that’s something that I’m working on. It feels really exciting. It’s been a lot of work to do on my own but I finally feel like I’m in a good place where I know what I’m doing, I know what I want to do in the future and I feel like I have enough skills that I could really teach and share them now.”