Sewing Station — What ‘Yeok’ Tells Us About the Value of Upcycling

Nestled on a quiet hillside in Buam-dong is ‘Yeok,’ an upcycling sewing studio that stitches together scraps of fabric into full-fledged new products.

Words Parc Jinmyoung
Interviewee Bang Sunho (Deputy Head of Yeok)

It’s an open secret that the fashion industry is a major culprit in environmental destruction. At the center of this is ‘fast fashion,’ a term that refers to the entire business of producing and distributing clothes quickly in line with the latest trends. Lured by cheap prices, consumers buy and discard clothes with ease. What many overlook is that the discarded textile waste left behind can’t be recycled at all. Noticing this, a mother and daughter came up with a way to reuse fabric scraps. What if leftover pieces of cloth could be given new life as beautiful products? That’s how ‘Yeok’ began, and it has since become a fixture on the hill in Buam-dong.

📝 Note 1. Small beginnings add up to a big decision.

How long has ‘Yeok’ been open?
Five years ago, my mother — whom we call the ‘Station Master’ — first started doing upcycled sewing work. I never planned on doing this myself, but since I’d learned sewing skills, I naturally joined her a year ago.

I heard the name ‘Yeok’ (meaning ‘station’) was chosen to reflect people gathering and dispersing.
An acquaintance came up with the name. Since this is a place for sewing classes, people come and go often, so the name fit that idea. We also wanted it to be a space where people could find healing through working with fabric.

What led you to start making upcycled products from fabric scraps?
It was while the Station Master was learning sewing at a community center in Changsin-dong, an area dense with sewing factories. One day, she noticed the piles of fabric scraps stacked up at the sewing factories she passed by every day. She started bringing home a piece or two to practice sewing with, and eventually began selling products in earnest in Buam-dong.

The sewing classes at Yeok seem quite popular.
At first, we brought in leftover fabric scraps from sewing factories and mainly made hats. Since we used pieces of all different shapes, unexpected forms would come out, so there was never a standardized product. Even with the same design, the feel changes depending on how the fabric pieces are joined together. As customers found the unusual shapes interesting and started buying more, many began asking if they could try making things themselves. That’s how the classes started. Now, classes make up a much bigger part of what we do.

How are the sewing classes run?
About 80 percent of the people who join the classes have no sewing experience. For beginners who don’t know where to start, we offer one-day classes. They usually make pouches or eco bags that mostly involve straight stitching. For intermediate and advanced classes, we split the course into four sessions, during which participants can complete a bag, hat, or apron. On days without classes, people can also work anytime just by paying a sewing machine rental fee.

📝 Note 2. How has circulating resources affected life?

After running Yeok in the same spot for five years, what’s the biggest change you’ve seen?
When we first went to factories to collect fabric scraps, we weren’t exactly welcomed. Even if it’s discarded fabric, every factory has its own patterns, so they don’t just hand out scraps to anyone. After visiting for five years, though, they came to recognize our consistency and sincerity in recycling the fabric. Now they welcome us, and we come and go like neighbors. (laughs)

Do you have criteria for choosing fabric scraps?
By now, I’ve developed a sense of what to make just by looking at the fabric. If we only picked out the good fabric from the factories, it would look greedy, so we just take everything. From that, we gather the pieces that are hard to sew and use them to make shopper bags, which we give to customers who buy our products or take our classes, using the bags to hold their items. It’s a simple bag design made by piecing together fabric scraps, but the response has been pretty good.

When designing with discarded fabric, what do you consider most important?
Upcycled sewing does carry an eco-friendly meaning. But I think if you emphasize the eco-friendly aspect too much from the start, it can feel tedious and tiring. So we try to focus a lot on design elements like the shape and color of the product, hoping people become more interested in the design than the environmental angle. If that happens, maybe they’ll end up thinking about the environmental value all over again, too.

Doing work that keeps resources in circulation must have changed your attitude toward objects quite a bit.
Since starting upcycling, I don’t think I’ve bought clothes almost at all. Actually, even before running Yeok, I was very interested in the environment. There was a time when I felt weighed down by city life, where everything changes so fast and only new things seem to hold value — enough that I even considered moving to the countryside. Thinking about the environment carries no guilt at all; it just puts my mind at ease. I enjoy making things with my hands, and knowing that what I do doesn’t harm the planet makes it all the more enjoyable for me.

What first sparked your interest in the environment?
As I mentioned, I started working early on and there was a time I grew weary of city life. Everyone has moments like that — not knowing what you’re living for, feeling like you’re gradually losing yourself. During that time, I spent ten months in Hongdong Village in Hongseong-gun, Chungcheongnam-do. Hongdong Village is home to people who value self-governance, ecology, and community. Living alongside rice grown through eco-friendly farming methods and locally grown produce, and talking with the residents there, I had time to imagine a sustainable life — a life truly meant for me. From there, I began thinking about how to apply what I experienced in that village to city life. I think that train of thought eventually led me here.

📝 Note 3. Joining a sewing class while traveling

Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, more people seem to be paying attention to the environment. Has that brought any change to Yeok?
We’ve definitely seen an increase in customers in their 20s and 30s. And quite a few of them come more out of interest in the environment than in sewing itself. I’ve been learning a lot lately from seeing how young people not only feel a sense of crisis about the environment but also actively look for and practice what they can do wherever they are.

How do you see Yeok developing from here?
Right now, we have so many fabric scraps that we don’t have enough space to store them all. Thankfully, our regular customers often tell us they wish there were a Yeok in every region. And honestly, as a traveler myself, I think it would be nice to have this kind of experience available when visiting other regions. From those hopes and considerations, the Station Master recently secured a workspace on Jejudo. We’re planning to create programs there that allow us to connect with local residents as well.

📝 Note 4. Worn-out or unwanted clothes can simply be tossed into a used-clothing bin, and that’s that. But where do all those discarded clothes actually go? How might they find their way back to us? Inside the upcycling sewing studio ‘Yeok,’ one thought like this led to another.