Waste is Privilege - with Angie Aguirre

Episode 01 introduces COM/VERGE's host, Mariángeles "Angie" Aguirre, founder of tHERAPY Recycle and Exorcise. Co-host AnaMaria walks her through ten years of running an upcycling brand across two continents. They start with "Waste is Privilege", tHERAPY's iconic show at SO36 Berlin, and work back through Angie's path: from journalism in Argentina, to immigrating to Berlin, to founding tHERAPY in 2012.

The conversation surfaces a few of the open questions this podcast exists to explore: how upcyclers reconcile being critical of overproduction while working inside the fashion system, and whether scale is even the right ambition for upcycling businesses — or if staying small and community-connected is its own valid model.

Angie raises these as live tensions and conversations she wants to have with future guests. The episode closes looking ahead to Episode 02, where Angie will host designer and upcycling studio owner Josefina Coll, and sets up COM/VERGE's recurring closing question: what's the next thing you'd like to upcycle.

Topics Covered

• Why "Waste is Privilege" — and what that collection says about tHERAPY's direction and this podcast
• Starting tHERAPY without a fashion background, or the intention to build a "fashion brand"
• Running one upcycling brand across two continents Berlin's fashion scene, Fashion Week, and the space (or lack of it) for upcycling within it
• The open question: does upcycling have to scale to be a real business?
• Why collaboration and shared knowledge matter more than gatekeeping - Angie's closing answer: what she'd like to upcycle next
• Coming up in Episode 2

Listen also on Spotify or Apple Podcasts

COM/VERGE: community and convergence — on the road to the first global fashion upcyclers summit.