Zero Waste Daniel Raises $10,000 Store Reopening Goal in Less Than 48 Hours
Upcycling brand Zero Waste Daniel is returning to brick-and-mortar retail.
After closing his Brooklyn, N.Y. store during the Covid-19 pandemic, Daniel Silverstein, the brand’s founder, moved his business online. In January 2021, when Silverstein and his partner moved into a new apartment, the ThredUp collaborator built a home studio where he would work and grow his business for the following 18 months. When Zero Waste Daniel outgrew that space, Silverstein moved the brand into the commercial studio space it currently operates. Now, faced with a more than 30 percent rent increase, Silverstein is moving once again.
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“We are taking this moment as an opportunity to get back on the path that we were on before the pandemic and open a new retail space,” Silverstein said, speaking to potential supporters of the new Kickstarter campaign he launched last week to support the move.
Zero Waste Daniel reached its $10,000 fundraising goal in less than 48 hours. With 23 days left in the campaign—and more than $12,800 raised so far—the brand is now pushing to reach its stretch goal of $20,000. Silverstein hopes to use this additional funding to work with local artisans and designers to “build the store of our dreams—not just reopened the way it was, but a fully-realized version of 2023 Zero Waste Daniel,” he said. This would include featuring other zero-waste designers in-store, organizing local community clean-ups and collaborating with local businesses.
Discussions with such local collaborators have already begun, Silverstein said in the Kickstarter video. This includes swapping scraps with the hat store next door, turning burlap sacks from the coffee shop down the street into shopping bags and selling upcycled candles from the candle store around the corner.
“There’s so many ways that we can engage other local makers and artisans in our community and inspire people to be creative and sustainable with their waste,” Silverstein said.
Zero Waste Daniel has signed a long-term, commercial lease on the 1,000-square-foot space, with an option to re-sign for another “several years” at a fixed rate. The brand plans to host the store’s opening launch event Sept. 15.
“When we’re moving in here, we’re not just making a move and asking for help, we’re putting down roots,” Silverstein said. “This isn’t just my shop. This is my home. I live in this neighborhood. I am a local and I contribute to other small businesses in here.”
Though Silverstein has designed clothes since he left college 12 years ago, he began reaching a broader audience when he and his brand went viral in 2017. Videos shared by Now This, Insider, Mashable and Buzzfeed together garnered more than 35 million views, the brand said. Zero Waste Daniel products, which stitch together pre-consumer waste scraps from New York City’s garment industry, range in price from $79 for cropped mock neck crop top to $295 for a limited-edition Leather Daisies denim jacket.
