By Sanya Khetani
Bad weather puts Catherine Charlot in a good mood. Armed with her shopping cart, Charlot is a familiar sight in Gowanus and Park Slope after a storm hits, scanning the streets and rummaging through garbage cans for broken and discarded umbrellas. She is often mistaken for a homeless woman, but Charlot remains unfazed, because in her own small way, she is making a difference.
Charlot, a 45-year old Haitian immigrant, is the owner and designer of Himane, a clothing and accessory company she created in 2004. Charlot uses discarded umbrellas, old shirts, jeans, boots, plastic bags and even furniture upholstery to create dresses, shirts, purses, bags and laptop cases, among other things; a process that is called “upcycling”.
The term “upcycling” was popularized in 2002 by William McDonough and Michael Braungart in their book Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things. McDonough and Braungart argue that upcycling prevents the wastage of potentially useful objects by using them to create new products. According to their book, reducing the use of new raw materials reduces energy usage, air pollution, water pollution and even greenhouse gas emissions.
Upcycling has gained acceptance in New York City, with people converting old suitcases into furniture, bottles into chandeliers and even guns into jewelry. But eco-consciousness is not the only thing that makes Charlot a Good Samaritan. Ten percent of Himane’s profits go towards building a school in Haiti for teenagers and young adults.
Charlot named her company after her mother, who inculcated in her a love for reusing things. These values, in combination with an ability to sew, drew her to fashion at the age of 13. “On my birthday, my mother took me [to a dressmaker] to get a dress made. When I went to pick up my dress, I didn’t like it, and I said no one would ever make any dress for me,” she says. She made her first dress from her father’s old shirt.
Charlot soon set up her own clothing business in Haiti, but it was only in 2002, after she came to America that she began to explore the concept of using umbrellas to make bags and clothes. Charlot wanted to make waterproof products, but she could not afford the fabric available in the city. She looked closer to home, and on cleaning her closet, found an old umbrella “and I thought, ‘hmm, umbrella: waterproof; let me try it’,” she says.
Charlot removes the umbrella’s wires, washes and presses them, and finally cuts them up for her designs, which she retails through various clothing stores in the neighborhood.
Despite the growing popularity of her brand in New York, Charlot remains deeply invested in Haiti’s future. She says it was her mother’s dream that she build a school to try to help children who didn’t have anything. Charlot was initially reluctant, but her mother’s sudden death four years ago at the age of 63 was a wake-up call. Charlot decided it was time she gave back to her community, in spite of financial troubles. “Business isn’t booming, [but] even if it takes ten years, even if it is just one room, I would like to have that one room stand; and even if I can work with only five kids, I will do it,” she says.
As soon as the school is built, Charlot plans to return to Haiti to teach there. She wants it to be an art and design school that will not only show Haitians the importance of recycling “because we have a lot of garbage there,” but also “give them something in their hands so that they can go out and support their families,” she says.
Charlot says that recycling and eco-awareness is necessary not only in Haiti, but in America as well, which is why she is trying to do her bit with Himane. “I think the landfills are screaming at us that they can’t take anymore,” she says. “This is not something big, but if all of us try to recycle instead of getting rid of everything it can make a big difference.”
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