Starting Up with Upcycling

As the world embarks on a more sustainable lifestyle, Angeline plays her part by starting an upcycling business while balancing her studies!

Story by: Siti Sarah

Pictures by: Angeline Chang

Ever wondered what you could do with your old pile of clothes? Well, Angeline Chang, 20, has made a whole business out of giving old clothes new life through upcycling. Her online store, wrkunderway, has gained 1,007 followers on Instagram in just two years.

Inspired by reworked clothes posted on Pinterest and Instagram shops, the year three Nanyang Polytechnic student from the Diploma in Mass Media Management decided to open her own business in 2020. 

Starting Up

Drawn towards clothes that are “different and interesting”, Angeline began her business as an outlet to express her creativity. She was inspired by reworked clothes that she had seen on Pinterest and Instagram which drove her to not only replicate them, but add her own flare as well.

“I like the idea of being able to make them on my own and realising that I could experiment plenty with this, I pretty much dove right into it,” she says.

As part of her experimentation process, Angeline also provides sneak peaks of her works or fabric options on Instagram. By utilising features such as polls or questions, she is able to receive direct feedback from her customers. From here, she is able to better asses the kinds of designs that are more appealing and worth adding to her catalogue.

Angeline also mentions that upcycling clothes has other benefits, such as being customised to fit different body proportions and being completely unique to its owner.

By starting an upcycling business, Angeline also remains motivated through contributing to the slow fashion community. Her vision for wrkunderway is that it’s “not just a business, but one with a cause”.

Angeline’s strong sense of social responsibility has always been a key part of her identity. In fact, her efforts to live an eco-friendly lifestyle began early, with the habit of recycling paper and plastic ingrained into her at a young age. For instance, Angeline would also habitually throw her old worksheets into the recycling bin.

“I could never bring myself to throw away things that I know can be recycled. I just kind of feel guilty about it,” she admits. 

Burning with passion and motivation, she started producing clothes for wrkunderway with a humble starting capital of 20 dollars. It was spent solely on a small sewing machine that she purchased online. 

“It looked like a toy,” she jokingly recounts. “It broke after just five uses.”

She’s also saved money by experimenting with old clothes that she had already owned and utilised any thread that was lying around the house to sew the clothes together.

The Challenges

As much as Angeline wanted to minimise her expenses, she realised that she needed an upgrade in order to continue expanding her store’s catalogue. Eventually, she forked out $200 to $300 to purchase her first full-sized sewing machine. 

Logistics aside, Angeline also found it challenging to increase wrkunderway’s online engagement. Since Angeline did not have a separate marketing team, she expressed that the business “(took) more time to grow”. Thankfully with the unconditional support of fellow friends, Angeline saw her store steadily increase in followers.

Most impressively, Angeline was not only managing her business, but her studies at the same time.

Her secret? “It’s all about planning,” she reveals. 

Her flexible timetable in the first two years of polytechnic allowed her to prioritise sewing on the weekends while she focused on schoolwork during the weekdays. However, to overcome longer school hours in her third year, Angeline sews small batches after school hours, throughout the week.

Work in Store for wrkunderway

Initially, Angeline never saw her business as a part of her future. The past few months have changed her perspective on this. However, she emphasises that it is a “dream” and for now she is taking “small steps”.

In the meantime, Angeline encourages others to take up upcycling as well. She advises not to “overthink it” or get discouraged by mistakes as the whole process often requires experimenting with different styles and methods. 

Ultimately, she believes that upcycling efforts are never in vain. Whether you are allowing yourself an outlet to innovate, or playing your part to reduce fabric waste, as Angeline puts it fittingly, “The end product is always worth it.”