Magpies & Peacocks, Inc. is the nation’s only 501(c)3 non-profit design house dedicated to the collection and sustainable reuse of post-consumer clothing, scrap textiles and accessories diverted from landfill – in order to disrupt the cycle of waste in the fashion industry and mitigate its enormous environmental and social impact. We work with an in-house team of designers, makers and artists to create unique up-cycled products, offer skill building and sustainability education, and incubate circular fashion innovation. Our model rests on four pillars: Collaborate, Create, Educate and Invest.
Collaborate: Connecting local businesses, artists, designers, and educators
Create: Producing up-cycled high quality, socially responsible products and solutions
Educate: Providing training, and sustainability mentorship
Invest: Supporting under served community workforce development
Our Vision and Values
Through collaboration we can:
Build a sustainable future for local makers & designers
Promote social responsibility, ethics and circular innovation
Raise essential funding for creative community development
If you have wondered about the origin of our name Magpies & Peacocks, well here you go... I think you'll see there is just a little Magpie and Peacock in all of us!
A black-and-white bird of the crow family, known for its habit of collecting shiny objects. In British folklore there are lots of tales surrounding the cheeky Magpie, the most compelling for us was that they were known as fervent collectors (even hoarders) of all things shiny. They were known to forage for anything from inexpensive or throw away objects to scavenging out pieces of jewelry and jewels. We loved that the Magpie had simple black and white plumage so we chose to incorporate that into the design of our branding, and that the Magpie represents the 'equal opportunity' and on-a-budget collector in all of us.
A large bird (peafowl), the male of which is noted for its magnificent showy tail-feathers and proud strut. The ostentatious peacock is perhaps one of the most glamorous display artists in the bird world! For us it represented the business of fashion, of fine couture and attention-to-detail – it put us in mind of catwalk grandeur and old school design-house prowess. In essence it represents the fashionista in all of us.
The notion of the Peacock – with its flamboyant abundance of color, texture and attitude, perfectly offset the simple, graphic, hoarding Magpie and created a visual platform for us to present collected and discarded fashion, accessories and textiles, that with creativity and innovation, can transform into beautiful things.
Magpies & Peacocks documentary film short: Interruption