ABOUT
US
a female immigrant-led fashion upcycling project.
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tHERAPYRecycle and Exorcise is a research on identity and self-expression through the creative reuse of materials.
Therapy was born in Berlin in 2012 as a creative tHERAPY and since 2013 it exists also in Argentina, where we are originally from.
It is run by two sisters separated by the Atlantic Ocean and united by a passion for upcycling and the creative reuse of materials: Angie and Poli Aguirre, one based in Berlin, Germany and the other in Cordoba, Argentina.
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We work at both locations sourcing materials locally and producing upcycled and redesigned clothing and accessories in our own ateliers. Our raw material is 90% second hand, vintage or discarded textiles, accessories and other materials. We produce unique items and small series beyond trends and genders. ​​
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We create clothing and accessories that represent and include human beings in all its diversity, not imposing trends or obeying mainstream beauty standards, while at the same time using materials that are already on the planet and that would otherwise end up in the landfill.
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We are female. We are immigrants. We are latinas. We are sisters. From this corner of our existence we work for a less toxic, more inclusive and authentic fashion.​
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THE WOMEN BEHIND THE BRAND
ANGIE - Studied Communication Sciences in Cordoba, Argentina and moved to Germany in 2004. She considers herself an entrepreneur. In 2007 she founded an incoming tourism venture in Berlin together with a partner, called HOLABERLIN. She was also co-founder of GREEN FASHION TOURS BERLIN. Angie is also as an activist. She worked as a volunteer for Fashion Revolution Germany as member of the Social Media Team and Head of Social Media between 2014 and 2019. She is part of future fashion forward e.V., an association that works for a more transparent, social and fair fashion industry. She founded tHERAPY in Berlin between 2012 and 2016.
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POLI - Studied Fashion Design and Advertising in Argentina. She lives between Argentina and Berlin. Apart from being designer and stylist at tHERAPY, she is a graphic designer. Poli was also a volunteer for Fashion Revolution Argentina and later on, its Country Coordinator from 2017 until 2020. She joined Mariángeles to develop tHERAPY in Argentina at the beginning of 2013.​
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WHAT WE DO
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- We create unique upcycling designs prsented as either individual pieces, capsule collections or yearly post-collections. We call post-collection as the new collections we made out of using our own waste and discards from previous collections.
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- Upcycling services and solutions for individuals, companies and organisations
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- We offer Upcycling workshops, masterclasses and talks about upcycling and entrepreneuship
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- We organise collaborative proyects with different stakeholders, from colleagues to educational institutions to artists.
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please check our items here and our services here. ​
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**through our work and our existence we respect and honor those who worked in this area before us and those who inspired us, recognising their work and their influence and being critical of ourselves so that we never mistake inspiration for COPY. And so we urge those who follow us to have the same respect for the work of those who have come before them. **
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WHAT IS FASHION for us
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Fashion is inclusive art.
WE promote creativity, authenticity and a fashion that represents and includes all human beings, respecting planet and animals.
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we promote sex-positivity, body-positivity, diversity and inclusivity. we actively support and give visibility to the lgbtqia+ community and oppressed minorities like us, immigrants and specially immigrant women, trans people and people of colour.
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We are critic towards hetero-normativity, patriarchy and consumerism.
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We believe in a wider vision of beauty than the promoted by mainstream fashion and media.
through our items, collections and photo shootings but also with our workshops, tutorials, shared ideas and open source processes we offer an alternative to fast fashion.
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Fast Fashion is killing our planet.
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fast fashion brands plagiarize new and independent designers.
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conscious fashion can also be experimental, daring and playful. Alternative fashion can also be conscious and care for the planet.
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We introduced the sustainability issue in a niche few other were talking about it in 2012 and We are a recognizable player in the alternative and club fashion scene and in the MUSIC scene.
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We don't follow trends
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Our aesthetic is eclectic because we work depending on the materials we find, but there are aspects at the core of our work thet never change.
It is as a mixture of underground urban-alternative subcultures and unconvetional lifestyles like BDSM. Because human creativity is strongly sexually-driven. It is driven by our fantasies, our desires, our fears, our love and our anger.
our intention is to tear down the aesthetic walls that oppress us.
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Our aesthetic is determined by the materials we find. Our process so far has been experimenting and working with all kind of materials, always of course preloved, discarded or vintage materials.
We also work with dead stocks and pre-consumer waste such as industrial waste.
Our ethic is guided by our intersectional vision, and it reflects our intention to redefine the rules of a failed system.
It mixes sustainability and circularity with issues such as inclusivity, body positivity and gender redefinition, criticizing what mainstream media and advertising impose to us as desirable or even "normal".
We support a more human, diverse and open source fashion.
We are against dehumanization, exploitation, objectivization and commodification of the humans who make and wear fashion and against the careless exploitation of the planet and its resources.
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We at tHERAPY do not only question the way we (mass) produce and (mass) consume, but also heteronormativity, patriarchy, binarism and the exploitation, commodification and objectivization of the human body.
our practice questions the dominating economical order where we are educated to compete with one another and aim to eternal linear growth no matter how devastating this is for the earth, its ressources and all forms of life.
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We propose a less egoic, less toxic, more ethic and more human (fashion) system with collaboration, cooperation and circularity as its base, in balance with the planet and the people.
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We have a playful and inclusive approach to fashion through DIY (Do It Yourself) upcycling techniques.
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Why upcycling?
because it simply makes so much sense than making new clothes!
it was something happening naturally in our community and our family as kids. Our greatest inspiration and first contact with upcycling was our grandmother Angeles Maria Perez (Chichina) and, by inheritance of customs, our mother, who passed it on to us.
ABUELA CHICHINA
Our grandmother was a daughter of spanish immigrants who moved to argentina escaping poverty in europe at the beginning of the 20th century. She only could go to primary school. she supported herself working with her beautiful, patient and talented hands as a seamstress. She had learned this from her mother, Angela. All girls would learn to sew, embroider, knit and mend in those times.
Grandma was dressmaker and upcycler. In fact, all grandmothers were upcyclers because they reused things, either repairing them or transforming them partially or totally into something new.
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Our mum alicia made it to university, but she kept the tradition of reusing, repairing. From her we learnt Also to knit.
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Formerly when the industry did not mass produce and clothes and other things were made by hand or in smaller amounts, they were much more expensive. Because of that, almost all kinds of articles were reused again and again, either with their original function or giving them new functions.
So Upcycling is a new word, but not a new concept. It is a teach from the past, something we need to learn again.
MAMÁ
Alicia
Before tHERAPY we already ran small fashion brands when we were both still living in argentina, together and separately.
But we would also made and pimped own own clothes, and searched all over for vintage treasures and rarities.
In Europe we soon discovered the many possibilities of having access to unlimited second hand and vintage clothes, something that was not possible in Argentina at the beginning of the 2000s.
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THE NAME
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tHERAPY started in Berlin in 2012 firstly with Mariangeles truly as a personal research and a creative therapy, I needed to recover my creative side I had to forget for a while to be able to learn the german language and adapt to a new world and a new life.
I needed To recover the tradition of making things with my own hands. And by that, To connect with people in a different way. Also to go out of my bubble, To interact, to do something inspiring for others, as others has inspired us in the past.
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RECYCLING is for us the most logical way of creating. There is too much stuff in the world. We don't need more, we need to be conscious and creative. Along the way, we learnt that what we do is actually called Upcycling. But this word was not really popular and we didn't know it as we named our project.
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Exorcise means to us to open those doors and windows and let fresh air come inside, but also let negative thoughts, ghosts, fears fly away. We are exorcising them.
This is our tHERAPY. Our connection between the heaven of creativity and the earth and its reality.
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Do you also want to wear clothes that make sense for you and the planet? That allow you to express your individuality and care for your community and the planet? Then let's create a community. Actually... we are already one. Let's use our power as community!
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We don't only sell or rent our creations. We also share tutorials and ORGANISE workshops and OTHER EVENTS to inspire and motivate you to be creative and thoughtful with your own wardrobe.
Check our YouTube and instagram channels.
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if you want to have us in your event or organisation with one of our workshops PLEASE Contact us . We also offer upcycling services.
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Read our MANIFESTo here
ANGIE at FASHION OPEN STUDIO BY MERCEDES BENZ FASHION WEEK BERLIN, GermanY. September 2021. READ MORE HERE
PAULA at the at the Circular Economy Summit IN Córdoba, Argentina. August 2021. READ MORE HERE
the THERAPY SISTERs at the end of their show at Helsinki Fashion Week, 2019. Discover the collection HERE
