To “upcycle” means to reuse objects or materials in such a way as to create a product of higher quality or value than the original.

NMB New York upcycles by taking high quality vinatge clothing, deconstructs them, and uses them as fabric to create NMB originals. We also source overstock items (leftover/excess merchandise) like our NMB baseball caps to create our own pieces.

The environmental benefits of upcycling include: heavily decreasing the amount of discarded materials and waste being put into landfills each year. This reduces the need to use new/raw materials in production, which as a result, helps reduce air pollution, water pollution, greenhouse gas emissions and can often conserve global resources. It takes over 700 gallons of water in order to make a single cotton t-shirt, whereas using a pre-existing t-shirt to make something new requires nearly no water at all.

Only 10% of donated clothing actually gets sold. Buying clothing from Vintage Stores aids in water preservation, reduces chemical pollution, decreases landfill waste, and helps to lower your carbon footprint.

Upcycled clothing is often more expensive and here’s why. Sourcing high quality materials can add time/cost and requires specific curation and creativity for each individual piece. Most upcycled garments can’t be made from just one source material. It takes multiple pieces of upcycled clothing to make one NMB Original. On some occasions our fabric is purchased from 4 - 5 different sources just to create one upcycled piece. Even though the designer is using every part of the clothing and the materials are being sourced from a sustainable source, the cost of raw materials can be high. Each upcycled garment is hand selected, checked for stains or blemishes, and carefully deconstructed in order to create each curated NMB original piece in the most fashionably responsible way possible.