Sandra Bendor has a collection of a few thousand buttons – and she’s using them to save her customers a few thousand dollars.
Her store, ArtsEcho, which specializes in “upcycling” clothes, sometimes gets hold of true designer pieces that are worth thousands – but because they’re missing something as simple as a button, get thrown out by their owners.
“I can’t bear the fact that because of something like that a piece of fashion artwork is consigned to the garbage,” said Bendor, whose shop is in Union City, last week.
“They’re pieces that really should not be forgotten.” – Sandra Bendor
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Bendor’s shop is gaining a lot of attention, as last month, she hosted a successful “sustainable couture” fashion show at her store that also employed the talents of store employees Liana Wright, a stylist from West New York, and Zoe D’Amato, an anthropologist from Weehawken, who styled each look that came down the runway.
Sustaining couture
The items in the show featured outfits that were created from an array of deconstructed clothes as well as some second-hand pieces that just needed an extra boost.
Bendor treats the inventory in her store like any place on Fifth Avenue in New York – the only difference being that she wades through after market pieces instead of catalogues and trade shows.
“We find each piece individually,” she said. “They’re all really high quality and in perfect condition. They’re pieces that really should not be forgotten.”
Sewn up
When traveling as a musical performer in the late 1970s, Bendor, who had sewn all her life, fell in love with the fine fabrics of the Far East. It was there that her collection of exquisite fabrics began.
When she returned home, her attention turned to cutting the fabrics from discarded clothes and organizing them by color.
She originally used the fabric in silk quilts that she handmade, but one day thought the pieces might make incredible fodder for couture.
“It’s sort of all been an organic process,” she said of the transition from quilts to couture.
She advertised on Craigslist and found two young designers: Ji Young Song (an Fashion Institute of Technology student from Seoul, Korea) and Aileen Lowe (a Savannah College of Art and Design graduate living in central Pennsylvania) to create various pieces for the Arts Echo fashion show.
All of the models were customers of the store.
Upcoming events
The packed to capacity crowd at the show was encouraging to Bendor, who said she is “absolutely” hoping to plan other fashion shows and would love to do one near the recently renovated historic Weehawken water tower on Park Avenue.
In the meantime, she’s busy planning for the store’s two-year anniversary bash and hosting jewelry parties (in traditional “Tupperware Party” style but featuring one of a kind, vintage, and sustainable pieces) throughout Hudson County and New York City.
Lana Rose Diaz can be reached at ldiaz@hudsonreporter.com.