Can a zero-waste fashion brand be couture and series-made at the same time? For Fade Out Label, the answer is “yes,” and its founder, Andrea Bonfini, explained it very well during the last edition of Denim Premiere Vision, within the talk “Triple Match for Fair Fashion,” sitting next to two other responsible brands–Triarchy and Kseniaschnaider.
Bonfini is a sui generis personality. He is an artist—an expert in conceptual art—but also a designer, a creative director, an entrepreneur, and, not less importantly, an activist involved in the vegan and sustainable cause, among others.
When speaking about his brand, he likes to describe it as unisex and zero-waste, offering hand-crafted one-offs, repeatable but always different, made out of deconstructed vintage denim and upcycled, natural material fabrics.
Since 2015, he has taken care of Fade Out Label’s development and production entirely from his Berlin atelier in Lichtenberg in East Berlin, an area hosting many ateliers and art studios.
Despite the brand having existed for a long time, the path that led him to create it is quite unusual.
He never studied fashion, though he studied at the Rome Academy of Fine Arts and started creating costumes for theater and shows, and before he graduated, Vicky Hassan, the still remembered creative genius and co-founder of the well-known jeans and fashion brands Miss Sixty, Energie, and Sixty, asked to work for him.
After six years spent at Sixty Group (from 2006 to 2012), Bonfini left the company and moved to Berlin, in times when the city had nothing to do with fashion yet.
Among his first works, he started a collaboration for Jochen Arbeit, a musician part of the Einstürzende Neubauten band, who asked him to create his stage costumes by recycling his old jeans, despite the fact that he wasn’t able to sew.
“He gave me his old Levi’s jeans and I started to do my first patchwork pieces, and right after, I created my own five-piece apparel collection. That was the beginning of Fade Out Label,” says Bonfini.
The raw material for his collection were vast amounts of old discarded clothes and–when the first orders arrived–initially from Japanese stores–he could to create vast quantities of identical pieces.
“By sitting in front of my sewing machines and being inspired by my studies in architecture, I found a system to make each piece repeatable, despite each item looked different for the distinct jeans elements I used for them. All the pieces were the same, and I could produce them into series. Plus, a client can choose the colors—light blue, medium blue, dark blue, black, and sometimes red, or other colors upon request—and the size, which I indicate according to centimeters as each country calculates its it differently. And since I didn’t have stocks, I started worked only upon made-order quantities. And I continue to do so,” he tells.
After he entered Not Just a Label, a US platform that selected talents before Instagram, in 2015, they invited him to Paris, where he won the Best Designer of the Year award.
“At that time my brand didn’t even have a name. I decided to call it ‘Fade Out Label’ as by unsewing old jeans there was a writing inside saying ‘Fade Out,’ that stamped lettering indicating that jeans fade,” he says.
He considered that brand almost like a game in the beginning, but the market immediately noticed it. In 2015, the Denim Premiere Vision show invited him to present his collection during a special event happening in Paris and involving various young creative brands. That was a success, and he started selling to clients in Paris, Tokyo, and throughout Europe.
“What I offered were unique pieces with a vintage look, but with a contemporary European design. And all the pieces were completely upcycled by simply unsewing old jeans pieces without cutting them. That makes the difference from other upcycled brands,” he explains.
Fade Out Label offers a permanent collection that grows year after year, including all the styles he creates.
“Everything I use is recycled, apart from metal trimmings, which I buy in Italy. The labels are hand-printed on recycled paper. In the past I also used recycled leather for labels, but now I don’t use it anymore, as I am vegan and that annoys me,” he added pointing out that the brand has become vegan–therefore, he can also sell it in vegan circuits.
In addition to upcycling denim pieces he also introduced recycled military blankets, military tents, blankets from Abruzzo (typical colorful jacquard blankets from Southern Italy), and bags. The brand has changed over the years, based on the consumer’s needs, but also offers single edition pieces–which is what the shopper is increasingly asking for.
During the COVID-19 period, many shops in Northern Europe and Japan have closed and the brand started selling on-line more. Along with that he has started creating apparel for musicians, artists, designers, and very affectionate clients, who always come back and buy.
Today he is mostly selling through his own physical shops. “After a series of bad experiences, no payments, no sales, I had the chance to be in the right place at the right time with the right product, and open a store. Now they are two own stores and both are based in Berlin.”
He has also been involved in some of the Berlin’s most iconic events–the Berlin Fashion Week, that didn’t exist before–and in the Berlin Art Week.
“They invited me to exhibit my works–and not necessarily only clothes. Though by having studied conceptual art and by using this subject as a medium, I created art installations. Then the Berlin Fashion Week also gave me great support,” he tells.
Bonfini is also focused on using 100% natural materials only. “I don’t even use stretch fabrics, as elastan is fossil-fuel-based and it cannot be recycled. Similarly I don’t recycle fabrics that contain polyester. Everything I use has to be 100% natural and recyclable,” he adds.
There are more developments for Fade Out Label’d future. By collaborating with an artist who develop alternative materials they achieved to create a new leather obtained through mushrooms. “Together we create ecological leathers made by growing mycelium feeding it with denim powder. We created t-shirts, dresses and bags, but we can also build anything like furniture, and bricks, but we are also trying to figure out how to fix the material as it can be ruined when touching water,” he explains.
Though his main ambition is different. “For the future I try my best to remain small. I am alone and want to continue like that. And, you know, it’s also hard also to be a small brand.”