Dom Amsterdam

Upcy­cling and cor­po­ra­te soci­al responsibility

Dom col­lec­ts used mate­ri­als and makes them fashi­ona­ble. They con­tact com­pa­ni­es to see if they have any lef­to­vers in the­ir pro­duc­ti­on pro­cess: all kin­ds of fabrics, clot­hing, old cur­ta­ins and indus­tri­al rol­ls. Dom is buil­ding a network of fri­en­ds, family and busi­ness rela­ti­ons to get more and more was­te. Then they look for the mate­ri­als that are use­ful to them from everyt­hing they have col­lec­ted. After selec­ti­on they try all the sub­s­tan­ces they can no lon­ger use, they try to give them a new use. The design pro­cess starts with the usa­ble sub­s­tan­ce mat­c­hing colo­urs and prints toget­her. Once a new col­lec­ti­on has been cre­ated, Dom brin­gs them to the­ir pro­du­cers at the Makers Uni­te foun­da­ti­on. Makers Uni­te is a foun­da­ti­on foun­ded to offer refu­ge­es a next step in the­ir lives. They work toget­her with talen­ted refu­ge­es in Ams­ter­dam. In this way Dom hel­ps refu­ge­es in the Net­her­lan­ds to par­ti­ci­pa­te in the Dut­ch labo­ur mar­ket. Some of the bags are made of orga­nic cot­ton, but the­re are also bags made of ordi­nary cot­ton or hemp. Howe­ver, most hip bags are made of upcy­cled fabrics.

Also sus­ta­ina­ble transport

They con­s­ci­ous­ly cho­se a local pro­du­cer in order to be as clo­sely invol­ved as possi­ble in the pro­duc­ti­on pro­cess, the­reby mini­mi­sing the adver­se effec­ts of tran­s­port. Diede and Zheng Ou use public tran­s­port for all tran­s­ports: to bring mate­ri­als to the fac­tory, to go from fac­tory to offi­ce, to bring pro­duc­ts to the shops…

Fashi­on has always been the­ir passi­on. Sus­ta­ina­bi­lity has long been very impor­tant to Diede and Zheng Ou. In 2017 they had the idea to com­bi­ne them and they star­ted Dom Ams­ter­dam with one very cle­ar visi­on: everyt­hing has to be as sus­ta­ina­ble as possi­ble. They find most sus­ta­ina­ble fashi­on bran­ds very basic and want to chan­ge that ima­ge by cre­ating hip and fresh alter­na­ti­ves. Accor­ding to them, sus­ta­ina­bi­lity in fashi­on is impro­ving, but they still think that the­re isn’t eno­ugh cho­ice for the cus­to­mers. Accor­ding to them, this is beca­use it is real­ly dif­fi­cult for the small sus­ta­ina­ble fashi­on bran­ds to com­pe­te with the lar­ge esta­bli­shed bran­ds. Luc­kily just like COSH! they noti­ce that more and more cus­to­mers are beco­ming awa­re of sustainability.