What is The ReDress Hub?

The ReDress Hub is a social enterprise established in Launceston, Tasmania in 2022, by founder Dr Kirsty Máté, as a result of her PhD research. It's aim is to combat the impacts of clothing locally, through the principles of a circular economy, keeping clothing in use for longer through reuse, repair, remake and resale and contribute to global regeneration.

At The ReDress Hub, we want to help everyone in our community to combat the global concerns associated with the clothing industry by acting locally, providing life skills and knowledge to repair and remake their clothing and keep it in use for longer, moderating consumption and reducing waste.

Why Clothing?

The clothing industry is the second biggest polluter in the world, responsible for 10% of global carbon emissions and in Australia, creates 800,000 tons of waste in landfills due to over-consumption. In Northern Tasmania, where The ReDress Hub is situated, textiles and clothing waste are one of the top 3 items placed in domestic bins.

From the moment we are born to the day we exit this world, we wear clothing. However, our consumption of clothing far exceeds our needs, where on average we wear our clothes 5 times before discarding them after 35 days.

What can we do about it?

Of all the things we can do positively for the environment, one of the easiest and cheapest is clothing – we just need to stop buying new clothes! By implementing circular economy thinking and keeping clothing in use for longer all of the environmental impacts are vastly reduced. By simply keeping clothes for 12 months and wearing them 35 times, our personal carbon emissions can be reduced by 400% per item.

Often clothes are discarded because they need repairs or adjusting (even a task as simple as sewing on a button sees clothing discarded). This is because many people don't have the necessary skills to do this, and we aren’t learning these skills through traditional means such as school education or from our elders as much as we used to.

What is The ReDress Hub doing to help?

At The ReDress Hub, our aim is to keep clothing in use for longer and one way we are doing this is by educating people on how to reuse, repair and remake their clothing through workshops at our Hub Space in Launceston.

Since opening in September 2022 we have had over 35 workshops on a variety of topics from sewing on a button to making an entire dress from upcycled textiles, with 165 people attending ages 5 to 65+, providing them with skills to practice ways they can keep their clothes in use for longer through creativity and fun.

We have had an incredible amount of support and congratulations from the local community on the work we have achieved to date including:

• over 2,000 social media supporters;
• close to 25% of all votes in the latest community funding challenge the Great Regional City Challenge (GRCC);
• visit and parliamentary speech by MP Michelle O’Byrne;
• visits from other local politicians MP Lara Alexander and MP Bridget Archer;
• invited presentations to Launceston Council, local Rotary Groups, Waste and Resource Recovery Assoc. Tasmanian Forum plus many more;
• $25,000 funding from the GRCC, Launceston Council and Abbotsleigh Old Girls Union to sustain our operations and overheads;
• inclusion in the local and national media (print, radio and TV) several times, including the ABC Breakfast Show on national TV.

What is ReGift:ReDress?

As a social enterprise, we need to charge for our workshops so we can pay our workshop facilitators, rent, electricity and the tools we need to undertake the workshop activities. This means not everyone is able to benefit from what we have on offer and we’re wanting to change this through ReDress:ReGift.

ReDress:ReGift is a pay-it-forward crowdfunding campaign to redress (pun intended!) this situation and provide opportunities for those less fortunate to attend our workshops. We will work with local community organisations and charities such as City Mission, The Brave Foundation, Shekinah House, Zonta International, Magnolia Place, local Neighbourhood Centres, the Migrant Resource Centre Launceston, Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre Launceston, NDIS providers and so on, to select people who would most benefit from attending one (or more) of our workshops.

By contributing as little as $10, to ReDress:ReGift, you will be helping us fulfil this aim for the people in our community for whom the cost of the workshops is prohibitive but would also benefit the most from the cost savings, skills and/or social interactions these acts of repair and remaking can provide. A donation of $60 provides the cost of a teacher, facilities and equipment for one person to a workshop.

We want to provide 100 places in our workshops to give people this opportunity in our community by raising $6,000.

Any funds over this amount will be put into our FeltLOOM, felting machine fund to obtain a felting machine costing $50,000. This machine felts small (and large) pieces of textile waste of any fibre into new and beautiful fabrics which will greatly assist in reducing textile waste within our community. It will also be the first of its kind to be used commercially not only in Tasmania but in Australia.

Sounds great! How can I donate to ReDress:ReGift?

Whatever you donate, you will be subscribed to updates about ReDress:ReGift so you can see how your contribution has positively impacted these communities.

We have different levels of donation to suit your own financial situation.