I recently purged my closet of most of the amazing vintage tee-shirts I had amassed during the gay 90’s, not because I still didn’t love them – but because the tiny rrriot girl fit no longer worked on my 3-baby Mom bod. But had I know then about Project Repat, I totally would’ve saved them forever.
Project Repat is a company that turns t-shirts into quilts or pillows. Just send in your t-shirts or sweatshirts or baby onesies and they will turn it into a personalized, unique quilt or pillow within a couple of weeks. Perfect for that motley crue, Yankees, or school pride shirt you no longer fit into – upcycle t-shirts and sweatshirts collected over the years into something truly meaningful. What better thing to snuggle under on a sick day than a blankie of memoirs?
The Project Repat story starts in Nairobi, Kenya, where Project Repat co-founder Ross Lohr was doing non-profit education work. After sitting in traffic for 2 hours, he discovered the cause of the jam: an overturned fruit and vegetable rickshaw pushed by a Kenyan man wearing a t-shirt that said “I Danced My Ass Off at Josh’s Bar Mitzvah;” Project Repat now has more than 110,000 customers. Since launching, the company has prevented more than five million t-shirts from being dumped into landfills by upcycling them into quilts and pillows.
Project Repat T-shirt quilts from Nathan Rothstein on Vimeo.
Co-founders Ross Lohr and Nathan Rothstein have created a unique business model where they are the only two full time employees, and as they scale their production partners, they are able to hire more cutters and sewers. There are now 60 people who work every day in the good ole USA on making Project Repat products.
At under $75 each, a gift certificate to this company is the perfect holiday gift for anyone with a handful of beloved tees and hoodies they can’t part with – read: ALL of us!
Order them here!