PHILOSOPHY
To tug means “to pull at with force or effort” and, as a nautical term, it refers to “towing a vessel with a tugboat”, which is a small, powerful boat, specifically used for towing or pushing ships.
TUG (store) wants therefore to celebrate the power of little and unique things that can trigger big changes.
Our mission is to celebrate and strengthen the concepts of SUSTAINABILITY and CARE, QUALITY and TIME, UNIQUENESS and IMPERFECTION with our selection of products, by tugging what’s vintage through the contemporary.
In a time where money is the most universal language spoken across the planet, our purchases and the whole buying decision process (or our choices of abstaining from it) turns into the most powerful tool we have to change the world we live in (being it for better or worse).
Buying vintage and second hand clothing becomes therefore a concrete action in support of a more circular economy, carrying the quest to answer the contemporary need for a more sustainable way of consuming.
FOUND BY TUG
Research, design and sustainability merge in TUG’s selection of second hand and vintage pieces.
We find our treasures in the most diverse places: in street markets, or in big hangars of second hand clothing dealers situated in the industrial outskirt of European cities. Sometimes we are welcomed in Italian historical shops, which open their archives for us to hunt through, or are invited to lighten private wardrobes of those who want to downsize without throwing anything away.
From this point we thoroughly analyse each and every piece in order to determine which kind of repairing or washing process they might require. Each garment has different needs, as each garment has lived its unique story.
Dealing with second hand and vintage products requires a lot of time and just as much care. Each piece gifts us with an emotional time travel and, often, witnesses some accidents on its way: from coffee stains on shirts, to small tears on a dress that, over the years, has become too tight; from undone hems, to bites of moths hungry for cashmere.
Our list of damages could go on forever but we are ready to face each and any of them: over the years we have developed a strong (and ever-growing) competence which helps us deal with any signs of time with the adequate attention.
MADE BY TUG
When looking to close as many loops as possible, TUG stretches out by creating an atelier dedicated to making new products out of Tug’s own ‘waste’ and recovering other ‘unwanted’ materials.
If FOUND BY TUG is the (100% recycled poly) label which brands unearthed treasures, MADE BY TUG is it’s alter-ego, which represents our new approach to selling and making clothes: up-cycling.
The base ingredients are dead stock materials and TUG’s un-repairable items. The latter ones are, for example, those garments with stains we can’t remove, whose fabric is though in great conditions.
The fabrics are recovered from a network of suppliers with extra stock they don’t know what to do with, or are purchased from specific dealers of fashion brand’s production leftovers.
When it comes to designing garments from existing pieces is like approaching a different religion: the basic principles are generally very similar, but the rules to observe are totally different.
Up-cycling when you are used to design with virgin raw materials, is like learning to speak a new language.
Sustainable fashion is for us the result of past actions and the origin of new ways of doing; in the same way a language is both cause and effect of the culture it represents.
We tell stories and each of them requires time to be listened, elaborated and, if necessary, discussed. This refers to clothing and, maybe, to those who don’t like to be caged in the term ‘consumer’.
TUG aims to change the way we look at fashion, and to revolutionise the way the fashion industry presents itself today.
