FOUNDED by a former fashion director of Vogue Ukraine, Bettter doesn't define itself as a sustainable ready-to-wear brand, but as a recycling system. The idea is to upcycle deadstock from men's collections into timeless women's clothing — a concept recently crowned with the 2023 LVMH Karl Lagerfeld Prize.
"Bettter is the first system of upcycled clothing that operates as a multifaceted platform with a shared purpose." That's how this newcomer to the fashion field describes itself, seeking to help reduce waste while offering timeless, long-lasting pieces, with the long-term ambition of recycling, producing and selling locally to minimise the environmental impact of transport. The idea is to transform surplus men's clothing stock from major labels into new, attractive and, above all, timeless womenswear pieces.
Prioritising quality, reducing waste
Bettter founder Julie Pelipas is no stranger to the fashion world, but she didn't start out as a designer. After a stint at Harper's Bazaar , she went on to become the fashion director of Vogue Ukraine. A position she left four years ago to embark on this major project, to which she now devotes herself full-time. And while it's still in its infancy, it's already shaking up an industry struggling to reinvent itself on the environmental front. And certainly not as radically.
"The concept is to partner with brands and be a solution for them and let them give their deadstock a new cycle of life so that they don't have to burn or discard it," designer Julie Pelipas recently told the South China Morning Post . The primary aim is never to produce anything from scratch, in order to help address one of fashion's biggest problems: unsold and surplus stock. But it's also about improving, enhancing — and upcycling — these quality garments to enable their new consumers to keep them for as long as possible... just like in the old days.
Focus on tailoring
Clothes are sold in the form of drops — limited-edition capsules offered on a short-term basis — on the recycling system's online platform. There are blouses, shirts, tops, skirts, dresses, pants and coats to choose from. Looking at the items available, it doesn't take long to realise that Bettter has made suits and more broadly tailoring as its main source of inspiration. And that's no coincidence.
The Ukrainian designer told Numero magazine that there were sewing machines all over the house when she was growing up. In those early days, she says, she started out by reworking suits her grandfather had bought in Saint Petersburg — Soviet suits being of particularly good quality. And it's this kind of quality that she's now seeking to reproduce with her upcycled deadstock creations, in order to offer timeless fashion, in every sense of the word.
Bettter strives to be as transparent as possible with its customers. Each garment is accompanied not by a product label, but by a passport. This features the name of the drop, the type of product, its composition, size and the countries in which the product was sourced, produced and upcycled. All of this is accompanied by the famous label that enables the garment to be properly cared for — and therefore worn for as long as possible. A veritable identity card, in short, which is now indispensable in enabling consumers to make informed, conscious fashion choices.
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