Photo Diary: How Melbourne label HoMie prepares for a Reborn collection drop

“After getting a few samples to look at, we hit the Excel spreadsheet and picked out the iconic styles we wanted to work with.”

The creation of a fashion collection is usually packed with deadlines, stress and last-minute decision-making. But Melbourne-based streetwear label and social enterprise HoMie seems to have the process down to a fine art. The label’s Reborn range creates new designs out of already existing garments, diverting them from landfills and championing a circular approach to fashion.

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The label’s latest collection is a collaborative limited-edition range with iconic streetwear label Mambo that came about entirely from chance when the brand emailed them wanting to give faulty and excess stock a second lease on life. Below, the label’s Co-Founder and Creative Director Marcus Crook shows us what it was like to bring the collection to life.

When a thought turns into a collaboration

Back in October, Mambo emailed us about collaborating, which was so weird because I had just been speaking about how cool a HoMie x Mambo range would be a few days before! In shock, I instantly said yes and the next minute we were meeting with the crew to discuss how we could bring this amazing collaboration to life. 

Mambo had excess stock and unreleased products with a tiny print fault that didn’t pass their high-quality assurance standards, which they wanted to give a second life to. After getting a few samples to look at, we hit the Excel spreadsheet and picked out the iconic styles we wanted to work with. Mambo donated the product to HoMie. All the profits from the sales went to our mission to combat youth homelessness, and they contributed to the campaign to bring the content to life. LEGENDS.

Once the units were selected, we sent them over to our new Reborn upcycling factory, where we have scaled up our capacity to work with far greater stock in a quicker time. This exciting new venture is helping stimulate local manufacturing, saving garments from landfills and supporting young people experiencing homelessness or hardship. It’s a win-win! Not to mention we’re making sick clothing garms in the process! 

Inside the Reborn upcycling factory

Once it arrived, all the garments were allocated, piled into sizes and matched with the HoMie garments we brought with us. This way all the garments will be matching fits. Then, the garments are bundled into two or three and cut up in the same patterns. We simply swap and change the panels amongst the three garments like a puzzle. This allows the process to be completely zero waste, which we love.

Once the product was sewn together, it was shipped to Morrabin to our printer. Shoutout to Redwood Press. We then sorted it into styles as we had five or six different patterns across the 400 garments.

Printing

Next, we set up the designs and screens and allocated the transfers to each pile. Redwood then completed the printing and shipped them back to our warehouse.

Campaign shoot

The next step was for HoMie Creative (our content agency) to shoot the campaign. We had pencilled in Luna Park as an ideal location – it’s super ’90s, colourful and fun and I think it just worked well.

Melissa Cowan took the photos and Greg McCann was on video; both absolutely slayed. I had the little $10 handy cam from the op shop for behind-the-scenes which gave it a bit of nostalgia and feel from a ’90s-style production. We had Yueli, Arjun and Kiki as talent and they all smashed it!

Flatlays, flatlays, flatlays…

Then we moved on to flatlays which we completed in our warehouse. These are the most annoying parts, as every product that goes online needs to have its own photo because all the products are unique. This makes them appealing to customers, but gahhhh, it’s so time-consuming! 

And we’re live!

Wahoo, they’re live! It was so exciting watching the live version of Shopify. We had customers in five different states in the US as well as Japan, South Korea, England and Brazil! The party shirts were snapped up within 24 hours and we only have two or three odd sizes left today. 

Mambo x HoMie Reborn lands in-store

The next day, all the ‘shop’ products are sent to the store, and these products that may have gone to waste suddenly become centre pieces in our shopfront. They are unique, different and striking, and they prove circular fashion can be cool. We are here for it! 

You can explore the HoMie x Reborn collection here.