Recycle & Exorcise | Fashionhedge

I found Therapy Recycle & Exorcise on social media and Katie’s Eco-Vintage post and immediately fell in love with it. Their vintage and daring designs speak to a timeless approach to fashion. Rock and Roll, vintage, sex and short shorts are some of the first concepts to jump to mind, their aesthetic approach is in my head a mix between David Bowie and the Queen of England on LSD. Therapy was created by two Argentinean sisters that wanted to get serious about slow fashion; by rediscovering the beauty in old garments and accessories, these two are a great example to everything sustainable fashion should be about. I couldn’t help but wanting to learn more about their project and they were kind enough to answer some questions for me.

“We want to inspire and encourage people to consume less new products from mass production industries. To be more aware, to act and buy in a responsible way and to be creative individuals with their own style.”

“Our aims are to protect our planet and to encourage people to be more creative, authentic individuals. To depend less of brands, products and mass consumption systems.”

Full interview

Tell us about the beginnings of Therapy and your desire to use recycled materials.

Therapy Recycle & Exorcise was born in Berlin, in 2012. Mariángeles was always a vintage fashion and DIY lover. She always loved to find treasures on flea markets, charity shops and second-hand places everywhere she was travelling to, and also to create and rework things by herself.

That year she had a personal crisis and she needed to push away everything that was bad, negative and self-destructive So she started by writing words in a notepad. This words were names of people that inspired her, or simply words of things she liked or that were happening to her. Then she put all this things that she has been collecting through the years in a table and, almost like in an exorcism act, she started to reworking it and customizing it. In that moment, all the images, moments, movies, places and people came to her turning all in inspiration and in a magic therapy. That’s the concept of the name: a therapy to recycle and exorcise all bad and old things to become new ones, better and positive.

The desire of reuse and recycle comes from being very young, when she read a book called “50 Simple Things Kids Can Do To Save The Earth“. Since very young, Mariángeles was always very interested in the environment. She was the youngest in the only ecological organization in our city, it was 1992 and she was 12. Seeing things that are abandoned and some times obsolete, with all the potential to be turned into amazing complements and unique pieces is a big motivation for us, a challenge we love. And old materials are what we love most.

Where do you get inspiration from?

We have a long history with fashion and DIY in our family! Our great grandmother was a dressmaker as our grandmother too. That was what they lived from. We she was retired, our grandma used to make amazing clothing and knittings for us and our dolls! Our older sister too, she used to sew and reform her own clothes to go out on the weekends. Also our mum of course! So we grow up seeing needles and threads all around. Our first steps was making dresses to our dolls and making our own costumes with old clothes from our grand mothers and our mum to play in our backyard!

Years before, when she was still a student in Argentina, Mariángeles had a hand made accessories brand. As she was studying she did some money selling in stores in Cordoba City. At same time, Paula moves to the Capital to live with Mariángeles and starts studying Fashion Design. Paula also started making clothing and complements and so we both were selling our brands together in stores. Back then, we used to love to find thrift shops and flea markets in Córdoba and create our own style. Style was our motivation: to have our own, different style.

So, we have an earlier connection with DIY, fashion and design.

Our family always encouraged us all to read, to watch cinema and they give us a lot of freedom and support to our creative and curious side. But we lived in a small city, whose economy was based on agriculture. So there was not a lot artistic or creative going on, bus since our parents came from Buenos Aires, they had a wider view on life and things in general.

Our mum was a teacher and our dad was a hobby photographer for years, so we had contact with lens and images from earlier too. And in our house there was always a lot of music: everybody used to listen music at home, and we love to dance and make it a choreography with our self-made customs.

So we also had an earlier relation with movies, music, literature and magazines (included fashion magazines from the grandma). That information comes to melt as our source of inspiration, as also a constant curious and interest to keep finding new ones. We feel passion to travel around and get inspiration from landscapes, culture and every single person who walking in the streets.

I love your tiny leather shorts, body chains and floral dresses. What are some of your sources of raw materials and items to recycle/upcycle?

We are always looking for old clothing and materials like metal appliques, buttons and accessories we can reuse in thrift shops, charity shops, flea markets and second hand markets. Also we spread the voice between all the people we know, and we don’t too, so we can buy their old or disposed items. There is a lot of people who don’t know what to do with it, so we offer them a solution! And for us is an amazing opportunity to find treasures too.

Would you agree with the statement that your pieces have a little bit of S&M to them (rawr)?

TOTALLY!! And we are glad u noticed it. One of the first words Mariángeles wrote on her notepad was “SEX”. And you know, this “life crisis” she had started exactly when she turned into 30, so this is a very strong matter.

This is an important energy for us. Call it sexual energy or simply life energy. We are both very curios and nonncomformist people. Always needing to go beyond our limits. Creative work is a positive way of channeling this energy. Otherwise it can become self-destructive.

In Berlin, Mariángeles discovered places where people can show their way of beeing and living openly. We are curious about it and we see S&M scene as another source of inspiration. This is one of the things we love about Berlin: whatever way u want to live your life, here you are free to do it.

How can I buy something if I’m not in Berlin or Argentina?

You can write us through our social networks: Facebook / Instagram / Twitter / Tumblr and we can arrange the shipping.

If Therapy was a movie, which one would it be?

Therapy is a lot of movies, like a compo of frames from many different movies who we love and are a big influence for us; like Labyrinth, Dracula, Eyes wide shut and many more from Tim Burton, Tarantino, Scorcese, Woody Allen, Almodóvar, Coppola (father and daughter), Brian de Palma, Kubrick, Wes Anderson, Kim Ki Duk and Cohen brothers. We think that each movie represents a particular moment of every each of us, turning it in our own movie: Therapy.

What do you see in the horizon for Therapy?

We want to spread our message and share with the people our idea of how great it’s the mix between fashion and sustainability. How creative you can be with your own style and being at the same time, responsible with our planet. We are always working on that, looking forward for collaborations and cooperating in another countries, with magazines, bloggers, journalists, activists, ONGs. There’s a lot of work to do, and we are always open to new ideas. We want to keep learning, teaching, absorbing as a sponge everything that it’s possible and growing up.

Anyway, we keep playing to create costumes and we try to live the present in a SLOW way as much as possible, like in our childhood.

One on one

Favorite fashion guilty pleasure

Paula: Definitly the shoes!

Mariángeles: SHOES!!! (we got this from our mum)

Your style in one word

Paula: rocker

Mariángeles: eclectic. some days glam-rock, some others dark with a fetish twist

Do you read fashion magazines?

Paula: I always loved to read all kind of mags, but before I used to buy, about fashion, some ones like Elle, Vogue and Harper’s Bazzar, untill that became boring for me so I start to looking for the independents, who share contents about fashion-photography-art and lifestyle from many different people around the world with a fresh and more realistic vision.

Mariángeles: I recetly discovered art&fashion or culture&fashion magazines such as sleek mag. They are a bit smarter and you don’t feel like a “consumer” reading them. But my personal magazine is Instagram… I spend hours beeing voyeuristic there. With Paula I discovered many great magazines such as I-D, Dazed & confused and many other independent magazines.

Your beauty secret (yes, I know, it won’t be a secret anymore)

Paula: I don’t have any secret, I just work hard girls! I’m quite careful with the food. I try to use almost organic components and I try to cook everything at home, with fresh and natural food. I exercise 5 days a week (gym/spinning), I spend a few more cents in good creams for my skin…I think that in a few years more my wallet finally will be grateful by that! I try to do all that I want and I love to do, as much as possible, without feel guilty. And I never, ever let the alcohol haha.

Mariángeles: Eat healthy, drink a lot of water, yes all those things we know, I try to practice them. But my secret is this and I would love to spread it and spary it everywhere, this world needs happier people: EVERYDAY DO SOMETHING, WHATEVER IT IS, THAT MAKES YOU HAPPY AND MAKES YOU FEEL GOOD AND ALIVE. DON’T PUT IF OFF. And if you don’t know what it is yet, here the way to find out: draw a circle. Draw or write the things you want in your life inside the circle and the things you don’t want outside the circle. Take it with you everywhere, think about it for a while till you connect with your soul. In my case you can call it exercise & exorcise. I need to move my body (dancing, jogging, or well….you know) and to do my creative exorcisms. 🙂

This year’s Halloween costume

Paula: Tomorrow I’ll have a party and I don’t have any idea that I will use yet, but I have an eternal romance with the darkness, so it wont be very different from who I always wear.

Mariángeles: Ziggy Stardust style

Your favorite Therapy item

Paula: short, tied short skirt and tight vinil jacket with pins, all in black leather from the 80’s.

Mariángeles: body chains, chokers, transparent black shirts…. and everything black and transparent. The white therapy collection was also my fav.