House of Scrunchies: Fashionable upcycling with a purpose

As a fashion designer, Anna has a soft spot for beautiful fabric. What has always annoyed her is how much of it simply gets thrown away. So she had an idea: scrunchies  – hair ties wrapped in fluffy fabric.

(Click here for the German Version of the article)

From old to new

One day at work, Anna held a piece of silk fabric in her hands which was left over from cutting out a design. Then she suddenly came up with an idea. She sewed her very first scrunchie from it – from a piece of fabric that would have otherwise ended up in the garbage can. 

Afterwards, she immediately thought of the countless leftover pieces of beautiful fabric that her fashion label located in Berlin received every year. These are the fabric samples that her and other designers use to select the right material for their various designs. After a collection changes, however, they go straight into the trash. A waste of perfectly good material that Anna wanted to stop.

On the left you can see the very first scrunchie Anna ever produced.

Turning a spontaneous idea into a side job 

Anna now gives a second life to many of these fabric samples. When she first started, she gave the scrunchies she produced away to family, friends and friends of friends. But in 2020, when Corona forced her into short-time work, she decided to use the time for herself and get a bit more serious with her scrunchie business.

So she opened up her Jimdo online store: House of Scrunchies. Within the first month, Anna had already sold 68 of her designs. Her personal key to success: Many of her customers see her chic fashion accessories on Instagram – and then end up in her online store!

Anna’s House of Scrunchies has another meaningful purpose. The  scrunchies do not only save scraps of flawless fabric from going to waste. For every scrunchie sold, 1 euro gets donated to the Children4Future association, which supports education in Uganda. So every  sold scrunchie does something good – twice!


More info about Anna’s scrunchies and mission you can find on her website and Instagram-Account!

Stefan Sturm
Stefan ist Redakteur bei Jimdo und schreibt zu allen Themen rund um Website, Onlineshop und Selbstständigkeit.