Zero Waste Daniel Fashions Bomber Jackets Made With Designer Fabric Scraps

Zero Waste Daniel never saw a fabric scrap he didn’t like. He’s actually seen a lot of cast off pieces that he loves and has been collecting them for more than a decade.

“I’ve been doing a lot of cut-and-sew knits,” Daniel Silverstein, who goes by the name Zero Waste Daniel, said in a phone interview. “It’s very comfy and cozy. That’s the era that we’re in. So, to do something with wovens, I always said, you need to accumulate a critical mass of something.

“It took me a long time to have a critical mass of wovens that were special enough to do something with,” Silverstein added. “As we started to look at our shelves, we were like, ‘Wow, we have something here.’”

Silverstein said that the scraps bring back memories for those who discarded them. “Just ask any sewer,” he said, “it doesn’t matter if you’re a famous designer or you’re sewing aprons in your home sewing room, everyone has those fabrics and those leftover pieces, and they know exactly what that project they came from.

“This was from my prom, this was from my curtains in my first home,” Silverstein said. “Someone gifted me this textile. So, every single little piece tells some kind of story.

“I feel like I’m Mr. Rogers giving this breakdown of every single background story of every single fabric,” he said referring to the late PBSPBS
children’s television host, whose stories spared no details. “I thought this has to turn into something really special.”

Most of what Silverstein has designed recently is made from cut-and-sew knits — he makes sweatshirts and joggers embellished with shapes both from the natural world and free-form.

“We do a lot of things in black, which is a very New York thing,” Silverstein said. “These are statement pieces. If you’re going to invest in statement pieces, they have to be something that can be worn over and over again.”

The 34 pieces he designed are bomber jackets. “I wear a lot of bomber jackets. We really work on our core selection that’s special and the texture is always there. The pieces are sentimental for many clients.

“We’re creatures of memory,” Silverstein said. “For me, taking these designer textiles, I feel a lot of the energy that went into the [styles], whether it’s the thousands of hands that went into making those. I’m not the only designer in the world that’s making pieces by upcycling.”

Silverstein said he tried to make the price of each jacket, $255, affordable for many of his fans. “Everyone has a different budget,” he said. “If you’re going to shell out $255 for a jacket, that piece has to be so relatable.

“I wanted to make something in a limited edition,” said Silverstein said. Most of his designs are actually limited edition because he’s using scraps. “Not only are the jackets really special, if you really get into the garments you might recognize some of the stories. We did a few different sizes in each color story.”

Zero Waste Daniel has an open tent philosophy and partners with other brands and companies to spread the gospel of sustainability. He received from ThredUP as part of a collaboration last year, 2,000 pounds of unsalable garments. Silverstein fashioned it all into the Full Circle Collection, 1,000 items such as dog beds, bowls, handbags and sweaters. The collection bowed on November 15.

That was Silverstein’s second partnership with ThredUP. The first hookup in July of 2020 consisted of pre-worn clothing that ThredUP considered “like-new,” which became the base, or canvas. Unsellable scraps were transformed by Silverstein into Monstera-inspired leaves and hand-sewed onto each secondhand garment.

Silverstein knows what his customers want, because he makes it a point to find out. “Any startup or emerging designer,” he said, “you always have to find out what your customer wants and what your core business is.

“I really went into production and full force with Zero Waste Daniel in 2017, so now in 2023, I feel like we’re exiting that ‘What do you want from me’ phase and going into ‘Oh, you want something new from me,’” he said. “It’s exciting.”