SZA Used H&M’s New Looop Machine to Upcycle Her Mom’s Favorite Skirt From the ’90s

SZA remembers seeing photos of her mom on an Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority cruise in 1991. In one of the Polaroids, the musician’s mother is wearing a tie-dye knit pencil skirt that SZA says always gave her “summer semiformal vibes.” The musician, who released a new song and video titled “Hit Different” in early September, found it while digging through boxes of old clothes during a two-month quarantine at her family’s home. She was on the hunt for a piece of clothing to send off to H&M’s new Looop machine as part of a partnership she’s formed with the brand to promote upcycling and sustainability. 

The Looop machine debuted earlier this month at the H&M store in Stockholm and it enables customers to bring in old garments and recycle them. They can feed the piece of clothing into the machine, which then cleans, shreds, and spins it into yarn. In a span of about five hours the yarn is mixed with other recycled fibers and then knitted in the machine, which uses no water and no chemicals, to create an entirely new garment. The technology was developed by the Hong Kong Research Institute of Textile and Apparel along with the H&M Foundation. While the machine is currently only available in-store, the HKRITA plans to license the technology so that it can be utilized by the larger fashion industry.

Primatologist and conservationist Jane Goodall was one of the first to use the machine and repurpose one of her shirts into a sweater. Model Andreea Diaconu and climate activist Vic Barrett are trying out the machine as well. SZA is part of the first group utilizing this innovative machine and, thanks to Looop, her mom’s beloved skirt will live on as a scarf. 

The singer-songwriter has always been passionate about sustainability and has her own independent label of recycled fabric T-shirts that encourage saving the ocean called Ctrl Fishing Company. “I’ve been thrifting since high school,” she says. “But even before that, I’d always worn my mom’s clothes and vintage clothes. I’ve always found recycling to be tight.” SZA remembers repurposing her baby clothes too, wearing little T-shirts as tight crop tops. She also says that she’s always loved unearthing dirty old shoes from thrift stores, as well as making jumpers out of her dad’s large shirts and DIY’ing her own sneakers. 

SZA explains that it’s always been a way for her to express her creativity and that she’s always “loved the possibilities” that thrifting and recycling bring. She adds, “My imagination is so vivid that I never saw an item as one thing. I’d think, this could be this or this could be that. Quilting did that for me visually, so reconstructing my garments gives a piece a new life and a new spirit.” She believes strongly in the practice of circularity, but is also realistic about how difficult achieving 100% reused materials can be for a brand. “It’s hard to always get it right,” she notes, “but the key is just to be committed to the process and I am…. We don’t need new things, just reimagined things. The truth is many of us don’t need more stuff, but in the land of comfort, creativity, and expression, I’d like to at least do my part.”