Behind his sewing machine at his Bushwick storefront, Daniel Silverstein, otherwise known as Zero Waste Daniel, sits in front of a cascading mountain of scraps delicately hung around him like its own art piece.
Silverstein, a designer who specializes in sustainable fashion, has owned his brand for a decade, weaving life into used fabrics. For a limited time this summer, the brand has collaborated on a collection for the 40th anniversary of the 1980s hit TV show The Golden Girls, a moment of fan adoration for Silverstein.
“Golden Girls, for me is something that I grew up on, and I think that in every way, as I get older and I continue to enjoy it and revisit it and learn from it,” said Silverstein, who has transformed his flagship store at 257 Varet St. to bring a bit of the TV sitcom, now streaming on Hulu, to life.
Starting at the doorway, a Miami welcome mat greets you alongside a mirror with the words decaled in black: Thank you for being a friend.
“The collection is largely broken into two categories. Pieces that represent individual characters, and then pieces that represent the series,” said Silverstein.
The nods to the show and its gags are evident in the collection with pieces like the banana leaf wallpaper jacket or a late-night cheesecake sweatshirt. Other unique designs include close-ups and abstract renditions of the four faces of the main characters, attaching Silverstein's personal brand and style to the iconic show.
“It seems really obvious to just put each person's face on a shirt, right? But when I started playing with scale, then I presented it to the whole team… everyone had this really strong reaction to the blown-up faces,” said Silverstein.
The Brooklyn-based designer told BK Reader that when creating a design, he makes three different versions, oftentimes with the third variant being more explosive yet an ingenious choice.
Most of the materials used for this collection and previous ones are recycled from pre-consumer used fabrics from the Garment District in Manhattan. With fashion being the second largest contributor of pollution, Zero Waste Daniel promises an alternative without sacrificing style.
Silverstein preaches the efforts of upcycling and reducing the heavy effects of pollution by starting with your own print on the world. “I would encourage people to think about sustainable fashion, not as a price point, but as a mindset.”
The flagship store in Bushwick is near the many go-to spots for thrifting, including L-Train Vintage and Beacon's Closet. Being a design brand in Brooklyn offers itself to endless operative creativity, the designer said.
“Being in Brooklyn, we're a little desensitized to how trend forward we are. We see cool stuff on the street, or we wear things without worrying that we're going to get looked at funny… we don't realize that we are living in the epicenter of where trends are made and started,” said Silverstein.
The brand functions well without sacrificing its ethos, and Silverstein does it all: as the full designer and product maker, unlike larger brands with mass manufacturers. "I don't cut them all, but I sew them all," he jokes, referring to pieces in the new collection.
Silverstein, who has dressed big names like Alan Cumming and Fran Drescher, hopes the future of fashion can adopt his methods. "When a brand adopts the cultural values as a metric of success, then they're going to push themselves further."
