Unexpected Upcycling

Admittedly, Professional Wrestling right off the bat this a pretty niche example of upcycling, not meant to be emulated, but to inspire creativity!

In the world of Professional Wrestling the look and the image can often be as important as skill and talent, you might think that is too important of a place to practice upcycling, but you would be wrong! Many people take this opportunity to reuse or upcycle things they already have while making their wrestling gear, the outfits that are worn while wrestling. All of these great examples of upcyclers in wrestling are from the Pacific North West!

Unexpected places like professional wrestling gear can be a great opportunity for upcycling for many reasons!

The character that you represent while wrestling is not permeant and changes overtime, especially early on in careers while people are still figuring it out, it’s hard to spend hundreds of dollars on brand new gear that you’re almost guaranteed to not wear again, so many people find ways to upcycle when they’re first starting out:

Rebel Kell

Assembled from clothing she already had! The top was alerted and dyed to work for her first match, and the jacket she wore to the ring was painted to fit the character!

The Bowlers (with a bonus outlaw)

While Kingpin Jonny Flynn’s gear was made entirely from things he owned already, adding only embroidery, this tag team parters found their gear at thrift stores adding his own touches instead of having new clothes commissioned.

Darby Allin

This wrestler wanted a very VERY unique look something that would be hard to order from someone used to traditional wrestling gear, so he turned to his closet and found the closet things he could find and then to complete his unique look took a paint brush to it all (as well as his face, but that is another subject)!

People who wrestle for a living will likely have more than one match every weekend, that much use is hard on clothing, not to mention the constant aborbstion of sweat and possible absorption of blood, it’s great to have something easily replaceable, which can always been done when you're doing from things you already have!

Chelsea Green

For a while she was wearing purchased gear(pictured right), then custom gear but as she began to wrestle more and more frequently she began instead taking bras/swimsuit tops and recovering them in the fabrics she liked to wrestle in (pictured left). Giving her more options to work with on the road as well as assurance that they would be well fitting, not always a guarantee when ordering online like many people do.

People can find avenues to upcycle in many parts of their life that you would never expect. Consider taking a page out of the book of these young creative folks and look for inspiration in the places around you.