Repair as resilience with Tim van der Loo

a chat with Tim van der Loo

One of the secret perks of living in Berlin is the availability of discarded clothes on the streets. Piled inside designated cardboards in front of private buildings or arranged on fences in public squares, abandoned garments are a common fixture of the cityscape, where inhabitants share an interest in re-circulating what is no longer worn but taken to be in good enough conditions for people in need and resourceful passersby to treasure and make use of.

With a focus on denim recycling and upcycling, Dutch Designer Tim van der Loo, embodies this ethos with remarkable passion. As a post consumer waste expert, he also understands that cities like Berlin need better infrastructure to effectively circulate the available clothing and promote repair and reuse as valuable practices and skill sets.

Informed by a prestigious B.A. from the Design Academy in Eindhoven, and an M.A. in Textile and Surface Design from Kunsthochschule Berlin-Weißensee, Tim’s research project “New Blue” and design studio “A New Kind of Blue” were inspired by people’s evolving relationship with materials. Our conversation delved into the challenges of working with waste, his exploratory affair with denim, and the need for reclaiming reuse and upcycling as creative acts and forms of resilience.

"The streets of Berlin are full of stuff, abandoned, discarded. Seeing this really motivated me to work with what’s lying around."

Givn Berlin: What sparked your interest in materials and textiles?

Tim: I think that really happened when I moved to a big city. The streets of Berlin are full of stuff, abandoned, discarded. Seeing this really motivated me to work with what’s lying around. Early on, I worked on a project that was about repurposing old posters. They layer really well, so I started collecting them and experimenting. I made a chair and a lamp. As a result of these interests, I also became closely involved in projects that try to build communities and infrastructure to absorb the waste and give it a new life on a wider scale.

The organization Textilhafen had a big impact on my practice. The organization exists to collect used clothing and hand it over to people in need – refugees, individuals with lower income or no home. It's a part of Berliner Stadtmission that has been active since a long time helping people in need in all kinds of ways. In 1994 a new subdivision of Berliner Stadtmission, Komm und Sieh was born in response to the changes that happened after the fall of the wall. In solidarity, the citizens of Berlin started to donate food, tools but also clothing to the different subdivisions of Berliner Stadtmission. In 2019 Komm und Sieh contacted me saying they wanted to develop a new project, a material pool and sorting facility called Textilhafen. I was asked to join the team as a workshop manager. So we did workshops with kids to discuss the current waste system in fashion and textile – why the value and quality of clothes is so low, how it was before, and why there's little infrastructure. Working there, I got really close look at the sorting department.

“Can fashion be a community?” or “can fashion be an art project or a project space?”

Givn Berlin: Did working at Textilhafen also inspire your current project, A New Kind of Blue?

Tim: Yes, in a way. I became really interested in denim, so I collected loads of ripped and used jeans, and decided I would work with them to make something new. I took them apart and really analyzed the material in detail. I came up with the idea of creating a material and a process that allows the end product to evolve and stay relevant in time. Eventually, I arrived at a process that lets you decompose and recompose denim using very little resources – chemicals, water etc. So instead of using the waste to create a new end product, like I did with the posters, I came up with a way of transforming the fibres into a non-woven textile that can be used towards making new jeans.

Givn Berlin: What are some of the challenges you faced along the way?

Creating A New Kind of Blue meant applying for funding and rolling into all these programs. The past years has been an application rollercoaster. I won the Bundespreis Ecodesign, which was a really nice recognition for this project, but I also spent so much time writing business plans and thinking about marketing, which I really didn’t enjoy. I just finished my last funding round. Now I want to rethink the project and move away from the commercial aspect, asking questions like “can fashion be a community?” or “can fashion be an art project or a project space?” So I’m trying to think less in capitalist systems, and more in systems of exchange or communities.

"Making or repairing something yourself is such a magical thing, it just nourishes your soul, your emotion."

Givn Berlin: When it comes to sustainability and rethinking fashion, technology has become a big part of conversation. As a material lover, what is your relationship with technology and artificial intelligence, and how can technology it be used to minimize waste?

Tim: I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with technology, but I do think it can solve a lot of problems. For instance, fashion is very standardized, and not everyone has a standard body, so to say. Collecting data has made a lot of information about body types available for us. It can help create a more inclusive and diverse landscape [in which people have access to] different sizes or it’s easier to personalize things. Technology also eradicates a lot of steps in the supply chain, like pattern making, which can be done digitally. This makes things very efficient, minimizing errors and waste. But a part of me is like, I love the craft. I want to touch the materials, experiment, have accidents and surprises within that.

Givn Berlin: Yes, it’s somewhat paradoxical isn’t it? Technology can help us minimize waste at a supply chain level, but also makes us less reliant on manual skills contributing to an overall loss of practical and material literacy.

Tim: Yes, people are forgetting how to fix things. I think it's so important to learn these skills. I sometimes get questions like, “Oh, Tim, can you please sew on that button for me?” And I'm like, “No, do it yourself. Just look at a YouTube tutorial.” It's not that difficult.

Working with kids has been really eye opening in terms of material literacy and how it works. Kids are amazing because they are very honest and emotional. First, they’re like, No, I don't want to do it. But then two seconds later, they're completely into it. They absorb so much, which is really beautiful. But for grownups, it's really tricky to learn these techniques because we have this boundary of “Oh, I've never done this, so I can't do it.” And it's really, really difficult to get through this barrier.

"It takes a community. You can't do it alone. You have to work together with your friends and with your network and go around in the city."

Givn Berlin: With the knowledge that infrastructure and systemic change are needed to tackle waste in an effective way, why is it so important to face these barriers and watch those tutorials?

Tim: Making or repairing something yourself is such a magical thing, it just nourishes your soul, your emotion. And it’s so great because you're like, wow, I did this. I can do this. I own this. It's resilience. And resilience is a form of activism for me. [Repairing something] leaves you with this feeling of “No, I don't need to buy it. I can do this myself. And I can do it the way I want it”, which is a huge freedom and, personally, I find that really exciting!

Givn Berlin: Looking back to these experiences, do you have any advice for young designers looking to make things work in Berlin?

Tim: It takes a community. You can't do it alone. You have to work together with your friends and with your network and go around in the city. There are so many people already doing things. I think this is very important, to support your friends, help your friends, do projects together. You're stronger as a group, as a community. Sharing skills and knowledge. I think this is the most important thing. Fashion education is very focused on stardom, you know, the individual star designer, and that's just not how it works anymore.

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