BYT, An Upcycled Fashion Line, Launches at Barney’s

Elizabeth Cline wearing BYT.

BYT, a new affordable luxury upcycled fashion brand, made its debut in the U.S. at Barneys New York. Elizabeth Cline was invited to be a brand ambassador, wearing the upcycled tweed moto jacket.

The exclusive BYT x Barneys collection of upcycled jackets is crafted from luxury brands’ fabric waste and is designed by emerging designers Kévin Germanier and Victor Chu as part of the inaugural Trailblazing Trio launch. The pieces are timeless with a twist jackets that bring playfulness into classic styles, which can be styled in multiple ways within a hardworking closet. The collection sends a standout statement that fashion, as one of the world’s biggest environmental polluters, can instead be a force for good. Partnering with sustainable manufacturers from Hong Kong and New York, BYT demonstrates Asia’s increasing leadership in the drive for a more sustainable fashion industry.

Global textile production is wildly unsustainable. China, which is responsible for more than 50 percent of global textile production, produces over 80 billion meters of textiles annually.[1] Globally, it is widely understood that millions of tonnes of new fabrics are discarded in landfills or are incinerated. Upcycled fashion is helping solve this mounting environmental crisis within fashion.

“I’m pleased to support BYT, and am honored to be wearing a jacket that so fashionably tackles the issue of textile waste, an issue that I’m very passionate about,” said Cline, author of Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion. “The jacket also proves that sustainable design and good design aren’t mutually exclusive, in fact one can enhance the other.”

[1] Clean by Design and China National Textile and Apparal Council 2014. Accessed via: www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/cbd-to-scale-report.pdf

[2] Source: Global Fashion Agenda and The Boston Consulting Group, Inc. (2017), Pulse of the Fashion Industry