Jonathan Cohen’s Most Gorgeous Textiles Are Getting a Second Life With His New Upcycled Collection

Photo: Courtesy of Jonathan Cohen

Jonathan Cohen’s new capsule of dresses, jackets, and button-downs reads like a game of “I spy” for JC super-fans. Can you spot the yellow insect print of Fall 2018? Or the daisy petals of Spring 2019? Only his earliest fans will recognize the flaming roses from one of his very first collections. Cohen isn’t reissuing his “greatest hits” or bringing back his favorite textiles, though, nor is he selling old samples. Every item you see here is brand-new, but was made with leftover fabrics Cohen has stockpiled over the years. 
 It marks a new step toward sustainability and zero-waste design for Cohen and his business partner, Sarah Leff. Since picking up the runner-up prize in last year’s CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund, they’ve been taking a closer look at their carbon footprint. As a small New York label, they thought their impact was small—and relative to a global brand, it is. But they quickly realized they were creating a ton of waste, particularly with unused textiles. During production, scraps and entire yards of fabric that didn’t get used were eventually thrown away, a standard practice throughout the industry. “We thought about how we could take that waste and stop it from going to a landfill, and how we can just be more responsible about how we use it,” Cohen explains. It was as simple as installing a few scrap bins in their New York factories; after a couple of seasons, each was stuffed to the brim with tiny scraps, muslins, and entire yards of off-cuts.  
 The idea to repurpose it all into new garments was a no-brainer. In some cases, there was enough fabric to create a handful of dresses or shirts, while other garments feature a rainbow of little scraps patchworked together. A skirt that looks like tweed is actually tiny strips of leftover fabric woven together at Weaving Hand, a Brooklyn-based healing arts center where disabled adults practice their developmental skills. The “slash skirts” and molded minidresses with panels of contrasting prints stand out, too; magically, even if the prints were made years apart, they all work together. All of those upcycled garments are one-of-a-kind and make their debut exclusively on Cohen’s website today. 
 “We develop all of our prints, and it’s a nine-month cycle from illustration to production,” Cohen says. “There’s always the opportunity to sell your leftover fabrics on the deadstock market, but it’s only about $2 a yard, and we refuse to do that. We don’t believe something is done after one season—that’s why we create our fabrics from scratch, because they’re special and are meant to last.” Flipping through the dresses, jackets, and Hawaiian shirts in his studio, nothing looked old or dated; on the contrary, the feeling was more akin to rediscovery. For those of us who missed out on Spring’s lavender daisy brocade, it’s a second chance to get it before it’s really gone; Cohen doesn’t remake fabrics once he runs out, no matter how popular they are. “Our customer is really attached to the prints and loves the story behind them, because there’s a real process behind every textile,” he says. “We tested the concept at a trunk show in March with 40 dresses we made from past season fabrics, and we sold out in three days. We realized our clients who come in to pre-order a gown [for the coming season] also want to make an immediate purchase.”  
 On that note, the capsule has turned out to be a win-win-win for Cohen and Leff: It creates opportunities to get creative and reinterpret past textiles; it diverts fabrics from landfills and makes use of what they already have; and, importantly, it’s good for their bottom line. “We were throwing money away,” Leff says. “We looked back at our Fall 2018 production, and for one of our best-selling dresses, we lost over $14,000 on leftover fabric that was just thrown out. There was no traceability—after the dresses were cut, where was all of that fabric going?” Now, it’s all being gathered in those bins, and you’d be surprised how far it can go. To make one of his new unisex Hawaiian shirts, Cohen needs just over a yard of fabric. Prices for those start around $500, so they’ll be an entry point for new customers (bonus if you can share with your boyfriend). Shop the full capsule now at jonathancohenstudio.com.