Product Finder

Hotline Onlinetool

Have a good clear-out and bring along all your old clothes!

Caroline Zöller

Published on 05.12.2019

Hehlerei, from Cologne’s trendy Ehrenfeld district and whose name means “receivers of stolen goods” in English, is a young fashion laboratory and streetwear label that has dedicated itself to producing “hot goods”, i.e. creating unique upcycled garments made solely from worn and discarded materials. As well as producing unique textiles, the young creatives are also working on innovative collaboration formats and new value chains as alternatives to linear consumption. Their goal is to infiltrate the established value flows of the global textile industry, which are frequently based on exploitation, and to turn them around to make them fairer and more sustainable by making small but effective changes to the system.

One of Hehlerei’s mainstays is creating and producing mini-collections and merchandise for small and medium-sized labels, designers, fashion creatives, bands, musicians, artists, teams, crews, clubs, associations, the culture industry and creatives who would like to provide their audience with their “hot goods”.

Hehlerei’s services go way beyond solely creating sustainable fashion collections. Rather, they offer all their customers a portfolio that has been tailor-made to suit their individual requirements and which embraces market analysis, fashion design, conceptualisation, sustainable production, marketing, distribution and even capacity building. In this manner, they are able to create select collections and merchandising articles which differ radically from the standard band T-shirt with a list of tour dates on the back.

Previous clients include theatrical companies, musicians, youth aid programmes and clubs. We will be welcoming the Hehlerei team to PromoTex Expo and the Textile Campus in Halle 12, stand N59 in January. Together with Effekt Textiles and Pop-up Nähfabrik, who are also based in Cologne, Hehlerei will be putting together remixes using donated garments in the creative exhibition lab. Garments will be turned inside out, re-combined and familiar elements mixed with more unusual features. The exclusive PromoTex Expo collection will not just feature some pretty nifty needlework but also involve silk screen printing. The collection will then be presented at a special event in Forum 13 at 5pm on the second day of the exhibition.

However, before we can do this, we need your help! Please bring along any unwanted old clothes. Donations of every kind will be accepted and there will be a collecting box on site for your unwanted garments. During the course of the fair you will be able to watch just how sleeves, cuffs, backs, trouser legs etc. can be creatively combined to produce something new.

Hehlerei looks forward to getting hold of your old clothes.

Images: Hehlerei