Earth Day, Grafletics Style

When this year began, we began brainstorming how to incorporate sustainability into our growing business. The clothing industry is one of the most difficult ones to be environmentally friendly in, as clothing frequently ends in landfills and is rarely recycled. After the success of our upcycled masks, we realized upcycling clothing is something often neglected, but substantially more sustainable than using "recycled materials". Recycled materials still leaves room open for mass production and quick disposal in landfills. Knowing this, we began work on turning our store into the first closed loop, zero waste clothing store in the Pacific Northwest.

Zero waste means we plan to never throw out a shirt, always opting to upccyle or sell at a massive discount. For us, this comes in two forms.

First, is expanding our upcycled product line. When we have designs that don't sell, ordered too many shirts, or have old stock sitting around, we are giving them a second life as other accessories. With high quality fabrics, our shirts are being repurposed by Ursula, our Sellwood based seamstress into headbands, bracelets, masks, pillows, and scrunchies, with others to come soon. So when you’re in the market for any of these items, buy them from us, as you’ll get a high quality sustainable product, made in Portland, comfortable shirts, and saved from entering a landfill. 

Second is an expansion of our 50% off discount bins. When we have a style that doesn't sell well, or want to clear room for a new item, we throw our shirts in the discount bins, where we sell them for $15 each. Like our own mini thrift shop, so come check out what throwback designs and colors are on sale! Furthermore, by sourcing our shirts from high quality manufacturers, we seek to give you the ability to wear our shirts for years without the need to replace them, leading to less waste.

As a small business, we encourage others to join us in upcycling products, as more competition for this will yield better upcycled products and out compete fast fashion producers who pollute with mass produced, low quality products.

And as always, keep your supply chains short and the local economy happy by shopping small!