‘Upcycling’, also known as creative reuse, is the process of transforming by-products, waste materials, useless, or unwanted products into new materials or products perceived to be of greater quality, such as artistic value or environmental value. Designers have begun to use both industrial textile waste and existing clothing as the base material for creating new fashions. Upcycling has been known to use either pre-consumer or post-consumer waste or possibly a combination of the two. Pre-consumer waste is made while in the factory, such as fabric remnants left over from cutting out patterns. Post-consumer waste refers to the finished product when it’s no longer useful to the owner, such as donated clothes. (source: Wikipedia)