The Concept

With the green revolution upon us, Barking Hippo Rescued Retro Wear was born behind the concept of upcycling, which is “turning something old and discarded into something new again and of higher value”. It is the reuse of the three R’s: Reduce/Reuse/Recycle. The term upcycling was coined in 2002 by William McDonough and Michael Braungart, authors of Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things.

T-shirts are a culture; we all have a pile of them in our closets. Some of our favorites and most loved have small holes or stains on them, so instead of throwing those special shirts out Barking Hippo can give them a second life.

Using previously owned and loved adult size t-shirts purchased from thrift stores, Barking Hippo creates original “mini me” toddler t-shirts, toddler dresses and baby onesies. We search for vintage concert rock shirts or retro product and brand name shirts and pay them forward with a new life cycle our kids can reuse.
Every Barking Hippo item is made in its entirety using the original material from the pre owned t-shirts. No new material is used in manufacturing, this process allows for the reduction of waste and virgin material use.

It is estimated that every year more than a million tons of textiles are simply thrown away into landfills, and more than half of these are recyclable, usually less then 20% are rescued.

If everyone bought one reclaimed garment each year, it would save an average of 300 million gallons of water and 400 tons of chemical dyes.