Echoes of Cloth: Zaiga Brutāne’s Journey in Upcycling

Interview with a Contemporary Latvian Designer

05.01.2026.
Zaiga Brutāne is a Latvian fashion designer whose work bridges creativity and sustainability. Her practice is rooted in upcycling, giving forgotten or discarded materials a new life, and questioning the excesses of modern fashion. In this interview, Zaiga shares her journey, inspirations, and vision, offering a thoughtful perspective on what it means to design consciously in today’s world.

Tell us about yourself, about your business. Where did the path begin?
I’m a Latvian fashion designer, currently walking a path that winds through upcycling — giving new life to things that have already lived once. In a sense, it’s not so much about fashion as it is about attention: attention to things, to time, to a world already filled to the brim. It’s a quiet rebellion against excess, a small practice in awareness.

My path began at the London College of Fashion, part of the University of the Arts London — a place where fashion was less about vanity and more about language, gesture, and philosophy. Later, I returned to Latvia and completed my Master’s degree at the Art Academy of Latvia. Almost immediately after, I joined the Professional Doctoral Program there, where artists from different disciplines — music, theatre, culture — study together. It’s a rare, cross-pollinated space, and I feel I am only at the beginning of it.
Last year, I founded Zaiga Brutāne Studio (https://www.instagram.com/zaigabrutanestudio), an ecosystem of slow fashion. Its aim is not to endlessly produce, but to rethink what already exists — to restore meaning to the discarded.

In any business, there are turning points. What were yours?
One of them happened almost by accident during my Master’s final collection. I turned to upcycling without a plan, and it felt as though the material itself — that piece of cloth, the forgotten sleeve — had spoken first. Since then, I’ve been learning to listen.
Winning the Grand Prix at Bourzma Boutique 2025, supported by SEB Bank, was another turning point — a symbolic recognition, but also a practical one: it became the seed for what came next. Yet the most meaningful changes happen through encounters — with the Bourzma community, the Butterman team, and AJ Power, a company working with textile waste. They remind me that sustainability is not an aesthetic, but a form of companionship.

How do you get ideas? What inspires you?
Inspiration begins where others stop looking. A torn towel, a damaged shirt — these are my collaborators. They carry stories, traces of human time. My role is simply to let them speak again.

Favorite books, movies, celebrities?
I often think of Martin Margiela — the ghost designer who chose invisibility over spectacle. He understood that to deconstruct is not to destroy, but to liberate form from habit. Margiela’s silence says more than many designer monologues.
I also admire Helen Kirkum, who reassembles sneakers into new narratives, and Andy Warhol, who turned repetition into poetry.
The book I return to most often is "Aware: Art, Fashion, Identity" by Lucy Orta — a text about being awake, literally, in one’s own skin.

How can you describe yourself in a few words?
I prefer to describe my design language: deconstructed, ironic, and sporty — a conversation between chaos and structure, humor and precision.

Describe your biggest achievement and most impressive failure.
Recently, I returned from Paris, where one of my looks was displayed at the Sustainable Fashion Exposition curated by the European Parliament France Bureau. I’m also part of Riga Fashion Week, hosting an upcycling workshop.
Designing an evening outfit for Sanda Dejus for the Zelta Mikrofons ceremony, and creating costumes for the contemporary dance Instinction at the Latvian National Opera, choreographed by Sintija Žīgure, were moments where trust became a material.
As for failure — I suppose mine was delay: taking twenty years to accept that I am, in fact, a designer. But perhaps every failure is just a delayed beginning.

Have you ever compromised your principles in your professional activity?
Every day is a test. The fashion industry is built on speed, and speed is the enemy of reflection. Staying true to sustainability in such an environment is not a statement but a daily negotiation with temptation.

What is happening with your business now? What are your plans?
At the moment, I’m building my own website and preparing a new collection — one that includes upcycled shirt-shorts and perhaps some quiet provocations. I don’t see upcycling as a style; I see it as a form of ethics made visible.
Globally, the textile industry produces around 92 million tonnes of waste every year — a truckload of clothes discarded every second. Most of it ends up in landfills or is shipped to the Global South, poisoning soil and rivers. Every seam, every thread is part of this story. To design today means to take a position within that system — to decide what kind of waste you are willing to create.

What do you like to do in your free time?
I’m drawn to music and art events — small gatherings where something real still happens. I climb walls, watch films, and occasionally remember to rest. Time with friends and family is another kind of restoration — proof that even life itself can be upcycled.

How did you achieve your first success?
By saying yes — sometimes naively, sometimes against reason. Success rarely comes as a plan; it arrives like an echo of previous courage.

What was the most difficult for you?
Money. And learning that rest is not a pause from work, but part of the work itself.

Do you have your own motto or mission?
If I had to phrase it, it might be:
“To repair the world one thread at a time — even knowing it will never be fully mended.”
Fashion is not salvation, but it can be a way of staying attentive.

What would you never do in your life?
I would never choose convenience over consciousness. Fast success, like fast fashion, always ends up in a landfill.

What do you dream about?
I dream less and build more. Perhaps that’s maturity. My wish is to create a fashion practice that sustains itself without consuming more than it gives.

What disturbs you in life, and what helps?
Noise, speed, and lack of sleep disturb everything. Silence helps — along with sunlight, and people who mean what they say.

A wish for readers:
Before you buy something new, look around. There is already enough beauty, material, and potential in what we’ve forgotten. Try to reuse, rethink, and reimagine.
As Vivienne Westwood said — words that grow truer every year: “Buy less. Choose well.” And perhaps add: “Repair often.” 

Photographer: gavriils.kniga.photo; Model: bibere.elina; Fashion: zaigabrutanestudio