Deep within the warren of Paris’ most famous flea market, Les Puces de Saint-Ouen, a new collective was recently founded by sustainable and inclusive fashion pioneer Samia Boukbir, as the antidote to fast fashion. Together with a team of committed upcycling designers, Refunk collects, repairs and reinvents second-hand clothes and textiles, to minimise fashion waste, and encourage a more conscious and sustainable approach to consuming fashion, always with the group’s signature a splash of fresh funk. Here we speak to Samia about her vision and dreams for the future of the company.
Can you share what is it you actually do at Refunk?
Refunk is a collective of designers based at the Saint-Ouen flea market of Paris that came together one and a half years ago. We work from here to collect old clothes and textile waste, them to create new cool clothing for everyone. I coordinate and work with the team to create prototypes from this material, to transform it into new creations for people like you and me to wear. Part of the idea is to make great, creative upcycling designs for everyday contemporary use that are quite simple to wear and inspire more people to wear upcycled fashion.
Does the fact that it is a collective mean that any designer can join, even if they are not based in Paris but just visiting?
The main purpose of this collective is to be super inclusive and to open the doors of sustainable fashion to any designer. In the long term, we are open to new people, and would welcome designers from as diverse as possible a background in terms of both country, gender and everything else. We are currently a small team, so at the moment we can’t welcome many new people, but we are really open to it, and aim to make this collective bigger and integrate more designers in the future. Upcycling is already complicated, and this complexity of designing upcycling prototypes and working on the fittings means we really need to be able to meet in person. That’s why for now we only work with people based in Paris. But our designers are from all over the world. The collective includes people from Germany, England, Americas. But we would love to manage and create new designs with foreign designers in the future, that is the dream.
You are the Founder of Refunk, but would you consider yourself a designer?
Not really. I don’t think I have the legitimacy to call myself a designer, but for sure I have a vision – a vision of the clothes I want to make and the clothing I want to wear for myself. But I don’t have the background. I am an engineer, and I also did marketing, but I just started making clothing two years ago, so its brand new for me. I feel more and more comfortable designing clothing, especially after working with super designers, which is the most inspiring thing for me. So yes maybe one day I will call myself a designer!
Is REFUNK something that you want to pioneer not just in France but also elsewhere, and for people to know that its something that can be done?
Of course it is. My objective at the beginning of this project was to invent a new model that makes sense for the planet, and I think we can do that. Here in the flea market we are experimenting with something that is very hands-on, but very simple. We are experimenting with transforming old clothing into new clothing. And I hope this model will one day be world-wide – that is the dream.
