Dallas-based WearEmOutTees specializes in upcycling “pre-loved” tees and new shirts destined for landfills. Courtesy photo.
In the fast fashion and retail industry, what's popular today will be tomorrow's cast-offs.
While timeless pieces may be cherished for years or end up in thrift stores to be purchased again, clothes created for short-lived trends are typically quickly discarded and thrown into landfills. Or worse, they up in illegal dumps halfway around the globe. This harms the environment and overlooks all the effort put into making those clothes.
According to a 2018 EPA survey, landfills in the U.S. received 11.3 million tons of municipal solid waste textiles in 2018. This was 7.7 percent of all MSW landfilled that year.
That’s why Camille Lee, owner of Wear Em Out Tees, is doing her part to ensure that reusable T-shirts don’t go to waste. Her Dallas-based online company specializes in upcycling “pre-loved” tees and cast off inventory destined for landfills. Lee scours thrift stores for materials as well as accepts surplus stock from businesses diverting unused materials. Then she designs and prints original graphic artwork on the tees and resells them.
Lee describes her desire to upcycle clothes as helping them get their “day in the sun.”
EARLY INSPIRATION
For Lee, her fascination with clothes began in high school in Illinois when she started working in retail.
“I really enjoyed working with clothes. And at some point, I started getting interested in thrifting.”
While she didn’t understand much about the clothing cycle at first, she began to question the life of clothes, and what happened when they made it to the thrift store.
“Most people think, you know, you take [used clothes] to the thrift store when you’re done using it, and it will land in a good home. Not realizing that's not exactly how it always works out.”
According to Goodwill, items get roughly three weeks on the sales floor. If they don’t sell, they may be packed into mystery bags or sent to outlet stores for sale by the pound. Items that still don’t sell may go to a warehouse or be routed to textile recycling partners. These items are transformed into new materials or sold to other thrift operators.
HUMAN ELEMENT
Lee’s fascination with fashion grew.
“I used to love the TV show Project Runway, and I would watch them make clothes and one day it hit me, ‘you know what, someone put so much effort into this.”
She saw the importance of the human element in clothes, which is often ignored. She emphasized how sad she was to see so many clothes end up in thrift stores, some with tags still on and not worn that much.
“All the work, all the toil that went into it [making the clothes] is kinda wasted.”
Today, Wear Em Out Tees is Lee’s way of combating the fashion industry, and doing what she can to find clothes a good home while giving them the respect they deserve.
T-SHIRT SOURCES
Wear Em Out Tees began with sourcing used clothes, Lee explained.
“So, I started with pre-loves. I still go thrift, I still go through them one by one,” Lee said.
She had one successful partnership with a company going out of business, that wanted to get rid of their T-shirt inventory.
“They had brand new T-shirts that they just bagged and they were just going to donate them to the thrift store or put them in the dumpster,” she explained.
She stepped in and was able to obtain the shirts and used them for her business.
Lee said she would love to partner with more companies in the future.
“I would like to make an even bigger impact on the environment and on the community.”
Lee is also open to receiving T-shirts from individuals and will offer a voucher for the same price of shipping paid to send her used shirts.
SENDING AN ENVIRONMENTAL MESSAGE
For the shirts themselves, Lee creates designs and slogans that promote eco-friendly messages.
“All of the designs reflect thoughts of slow fashion,” she said.
One design slogan — “Repair it, Refit it, Rewear it” — reflects her company’s business motto.
Lee also offers blunt messages with humor.
“We have one [design] that’s like, ‘Mother Earth is aggravated with the people here,’” she said, adding that she liked some messages to be a bit snarky.
“The [slogans] are all basically about the environment. They’re all about living more slowly and just being ecoconscious.”
Lee said that both she and her husband work together to make the designs, with her husband being the artist behind the illustrations. After she approves the designs, they are sent off to be printed on the shirts.
RAISING CONSCIOUSNESS ONE T-SHIRT AT A TIME
Wear Em Out Tees has seen growth since the business started in 2018.
“We started in Illinois and we relocated here to Texas several years back. And it feels like the appetite for what we do has just been so much better here in Texas.”
A core goal of Wear Em Out Tees, is the environmental aspect and convincing people to make environmentally conscious fashion choices when they purchase clothes.
Besides making a living, Lee hopes she’s spreading the word about the importance of slow fashion and showing genuine respect for preloved clothes, while also promoting environmentally and ethically friendly options.
“Just slow down and make intentional decisions and don’t buy everything that is shiny and dangly in your face without knowing a little bit about what happens behind the scenes,” Lee said.
She warns about the dark side of the industry that many people who hop on fast fashion trends may not be aware of.
“Unfortunately, most of the clothes fast fashion companies produce come from other countries that don’t necessarily have labor laws, that don’t necessarily have ethical practices.”
There are billions of dollars put into marketing for fast fashion, Lee said, so it’s important for consumers to educate themselves.
“Just scratch the surface a little bit. Just do a tiny bit of research about the desert in Chile that’s filled with discarded clothing that you can see from the satellite – that you can see from space,” Lee said referring to the Atacama desert, which over the years has transformed into a clothes dumping ground of sorts.
Lee concluded saying she hopes her efforts will have an effect even if it's a small one.
“I knew that I could not save all the clothes in the world, but I figured that if I could just make a small dent, just kinda focus on one specific garment, that would at least help something in some way make a difference.”
Wear Em Out Tees T-shirts sell for $24.99 each. Lee also sells braided wristlets for $14.99 and zero-waste Christmas ornaments made with reclaimed T-shirt fabric, two for $8.99.