From his south-east London base, Farouk Braimoh is saving discarded fabrics from landfill and creating a cutting-edge designer brand
On his first morning of secondary school, Farouk Braimoh — now founder of upcycling label RWRK Studio — boarded the train to school with £20 in his pocket to last the whole month. It was less than half the monthly lunch allowance his older siblings used to get. Their dad had recently slashed everyone’s spending money after finding out that they’d been spending it on chicken and chips after school, just before dinner.
Lunch cost £1.65 per day. Doing the maths, Braimoh cried. “I was like, how am I going to survive? I’ll finish my money by week two,” he recalls. He stopped at Asda, bought a five-pack of cookies, ate two and sold the rest at school. By the end of Year 7, he had a side hustle, a loyal customer base and his first taste of business.
“I was the guy,” he says. “There were people who wouldn’t eat breakfast at home, so I was selling to them in the morning. I’d get to school early to feed my early customers. That’s what lit the fire in me — it’s how I learned to survive. I started to enjoy the thrill of making enough money to buy an Xbox game or the trainers I wanted. I didn’t have to rely on Mum.”
Today, that knack for doing more with less drives his new business, RWRK Studio. Based in Greenwich, south-east London, and founded in 2023, the brand transforms discarded clothing and materials — most recently towels from gyms and hotels — into stylish clothes and accessories.
Globally, the fashion industry produces an estimated 92 million tonnes of textile waste each year, much of it from unworn or barely used garments. Most of it ends up in landfill sites or is burned. As fast fashion giants churn out cheap clothing at speed, smaller, independent brands such as RWRK are attempting to slow things down, creating new items using what already exists.
On a recent afternoon in Greenwich, Braimoh stands inside RWRK’s brightly lit studio, surrounded by large boxes of old towels. Some remain untouched, still white and undyed. Others have been cut into panels, stitched into shorts or transformed into tote bags, waiting to be packed and shipped.
“Everything in our studio is pre-loved. We thrift everything,” Braimoh tells me, gesturing around the room where he and two colleagues run the business. From the design table at the head of the room to the chairs we’re sitting on and the sewing machines that bring clothes to life, every item has been sourced second hand.
The idea for RWRK took shape during Braimoh’s three years working as a sales assistant at Burberry. There, he watched unsold or damaged clothes pile up in the stockroom.
“Burberry was doing a sample sale every month at 90% off,” he recalls. “They’d pay us on the last Friday and then on the Monday there’d be a sale. I didn’t really complain. My whole family, to this day, wears Burberry.”
But, behind the sales, Braimoh couldn’t ignore the sheer volume of clothes being wasted. “There’d be a pile of stuff that was damaged and a pile that we were just not selling because no one was buying it,” he says. “They were trying to get rid of all this stuff and just didn’t know what else to do with it.”
While still at Burberry, in 2021, Braimoh pitched the idea of upcycling unused stock but was unsuccessful. “They were like, why are we discussing this with Farouk? Is he a known designer? Why would we just trust him with our design?” he says.
After leaving the brand in 2022, he faced similar barriers. In a meeting with senior staff at Tommy Hilfiger, Braimoh was told that while the idea was strong, no one would hand him that kind of responsibility without an established name. The message was clear — brands care about who is delivering the project.
“Who is the messenger, right?” he says. “At that point I was like. ‘You know what… I’m just going to make clothes on my own and sell direct-to-consumer.’”
Upcycling wasn’t new to Braimoh. Born in Nigeria before his family moved to the UK when he was nine, he grew up in a culture where reusing and repurposing items was the norm. “We would cut a bottle and use it as a funnel for petrol. Even plastic bags, we’d store them in a little drawer, or under the sink,” he says. “For me, this idea of upcycling made so much sense and it’s something that I’m so passionate about. We’d been doing this; we just didn’t know what it was called.”
Braimoh’s idea for RWRK began in his spare room in south-east London, but quickly gained traction. “We would make jackets from dust bags and we blew up on social media,” he says.
Initially, RWRK focused on creating made-to-order pieces from old clothes sourced at a thrift warehouse in Hertfordshire. At a discounted price, Braimoh would buy clothes that sellers didn’t think would sell and transform them into one-of-a-kind designs. “We were doing that up until last year, but the issue was that it wasn’t scalable,” he explains. “A jacket could take days to source the material. If I had 20 orders, I’d be stressed thinking, ‘How am I going to source this material 20 times?’”
Realising the limits of his custom-made, one-of-a-kind model, Braimoh began exploring more accessible and versatile materials. “Towards the end of last year, I started thinking how I could make a bigger impact and scale while still being fashionable.”
Braimoh says he thought about using bed sheets and curtains, but that towels stood out. So far this year, RWRK has upcycled 200kg of towels. Braimoh says the company’s first towel-based product, a tote bag retailing at £28, has tested well with customers. “We’re now releasing a pair of shorts for summer and planning a winter collection, including a hoodie and joggers. We’re upcycling so much more and on a bigger scale.”
Towels are easy to source, clean and process. Braimoh buys them by the kilogram from hotels and gyms that need to dispose of their old stock. “A lot of them will end up at landfills, some go to recycling companies, but recycling is expensive, so most places just want to get rid of the problem. I come in and take them for a small price.”
That approach has given RWRK Studio significant potential to scale. Braimoh now envisions a future shop or even a space in Selfridges, confident he can meet the demand without worrying about material shortages. “I don’t have to think, ‘I have 100 orders, where am I going to get the materials?’ It’s coming out of my ears,” he laughs.
In 2024, the RWRK team made £85k in sales. This year, the company is aiming to reach £150k. The brand’s customer base has grown far beyond its south-east London home. “Honestly, it’s crazy,” Braimoh says. “Sixty-five per cent of our customers are in the US.”
The brand’s customer base skews slightly female, with around 60% women to 40% men, and ranges widely in age. “I’ve had some 60-year-olds buy from us,” he says, “but the usual range is about 21 to 45.”
Braimoh’s customers reflect a growing appetite among consumers for fashion that aligns with sustainability, without compromising style. In 2024, global sales of pre-owned clothes rose by 18% from the previous year to £156bn.
Platforms such as Depop and Vinted have also made it easier for shoppers to buy and sell pre-owned clothes. In 2024, Depop made more than £581 million in sales and had more than 45 million registered users. Similarly, in 2023, Vinted reported more than 105 million registered users.
Driven by factors such as sustainability, affordability, and concerns about poor working conditions in clothing production, this shift has largely been driven by younger generations. According to research published earlier this year by charity retailer Traid, more than 80% of shoppers aged 18-34 reported wearing pre-loved clothes, compared to 50% among those aged 55-64.
For Braimoh, upcycling is more than just a trend. “It could be the future of fashion,” he says. “We live in a world where everyone looks the same and there’s less individuality these days. Upcycling is bringing back creativity. It’s also making an impact by taking fewer clothes to landfill.”