Reinventing Fashion and Herself - with Josefina Coll
Josefina Coll, founder of Josefina Studio Berlin, joins Angie Aguirre to trace how she built a services-based upcycling studio instead of a traditional fashion label. The conversation covers burnout, the economics of teaching versus custom orders, how brands really engage (or don't) with upcycling, and her belief that reinvention — not a fixed business model — is the actual product.
The Business Behind the Brand
Josefina Coll, founder of Josefina Studio Berlin, joins Angie Aguirre to trace how she built a services-based upcycling studio instead of a traditional fashion label.
Starting from a childhood spent altering her own clothes in Uruguay, she arrived in Berlin during COVID with no job and no money, bartered sewing skills on a "Swap Your Skills" Facebook group, and turned that into a studio now serving 600+ students, corporate clients like Adidas, New Balance, and Zalando, and a growing teacher-training program. It's a direct answer to the growth question Episode 1 raised: Josefina scales by staying close to the community, and to herself — growing her impact not via products but with services. from custom sewing to teaching to training other designers.
The conversation covers burnout, the economics of teaching versus custom orders, how brands really engage (or don't) with upcycling, and her belief that reinvention — not a fixed business model — is the actual product.
TOPICS COVERED
- Origin story — how rebellion led to sewing, and her first business
- The move to Berlin and the job that didn't exist — landing on self-employment as necessity, not plan
- Why services instead of a product brand — the reasoning behind skipping collections, stock, and sizing
- Growth through burnout and correction — scaling into custom orders, hitting a wall, redesigning around teaching
- The teaching business today — courses, workshops, and training other designers to teach
- Working with corporate brands — what real engagement with upcycling looks like versus surface-level interest
- Upcycling as mindset, not technique — creativity, perfectionism, and who actually shows up to learn
- Annual reinvention as business philosophy — why nothing about the studio is meant to be permanent
- Closing question: what she'd upcycle — the case for making upcycling businesses themselves more sustainable
Listen also on Spotify and Apple Podcasts
COM/VERGE: community and convergence — on the road to the first global fashion upcyclers summit.