tHERAPY Recycle & Exorcise
tHERAPY Recycle and Exorcise is a sustainable and alternative, gender-free, season-free and trends-free upcycling fashion project based in Berlin, Germany and Córdoba, Argentina, ran since 2012 by two sisters separated by the Atlantic Ocean and re-united by this passion, Paula and Mariángeles Aguirre.
What makes tHERAPY unique
tHERAPY Recycle and Exorcise is an upcycling fashion brand based in Berlin and South America with a playful, alternative and inclusive approach to sustentability throught DIY upcycling and a style that has become recognizable and a reference for newer brands for which tHERAPY has created a path to follow: sustainable fashion can also be experimental, daring and playful. And actually, all fashion should be sustainable!
tHERAPY has introduced the sustainability issue there where nobody was talking about it by bringing it together with styles that don't follow the usual sustainable-fashion-trends.
Our aesthetic fluctuates maintaining certain aspects that are at the core of our work. It reflects our intention to push down the walls that contains and opress us. It can be defined as punk-like, but actually as a mixture of underground urban /alternative subcultures and unconvetional lifestyles like BDSM. Our creative energy is sexually-driven. It is driven by our fantasies, our desires, our fears, our love and our anger. Our aesthetic is also determined by the materials we found. Our process so far has been experimenting and working with all kind of materials.
Our ethic mixes material sustainability and circularity with issues such as inclusivity, body positivity and gender redefinition, criticizing what mainstream media and advertising constantly imposes. We support a more human, diverse and open source fashion. We are against dehumanization, exploitation, objectivization and commodification of the humans who make and wear fashion and against the careless exploitation of the planet and its resources.
tHERAPY do not only question the way we (mass) produce and (mass) consume, but also heteronormativity, patriarchy, binarism and the exploitation, commodification and objectivization of the human body.
It also questions the currently dominating economical order where we are educated to compete with one another and aim to eternal linear growth no matter how devastating this is for the earth, its ressources and all forms of life. We propose a less egoic, less toxic, more ethic and more human (fashion) system with collaboration, cooperation and circularity as its base, in balance with the planet and the people.
Who we are
Mariángeles studied Communication Sciences finishing her studies in 2004, in Cordoba, Argentina. She moved to Germany that same year. Has worked as freelance writer for magazines and blogs. She runs a personal blog since 2003, called slave2words.
Mariángeles is an entrepreneur.
In 2007 she founded a tourism entrepreneurship in Berlin together with her partner, called HOLABERLIN, which she runs until today.
She was one of the co-founders of GREEN FASHION TOURS BERLIN.
She is part of future fashion forward e.V. an association that works for a more transparent, social and fair fashion industry and is behind Fashion Revolution Germany in Germany.
Mariángeles worked as a volunteer for Fashion Revolution Germany as member of the Social Media Team and finally as Head of Social Media between 2014 and 2019. Mariángeles founded tHERAPY Recycle and Exorcise in Berlin, in june of 2012.
Paula studied Fashion Design and Advertising in Argentina, finishing both careers in 2009.
Paula lives between Argentina and Berlin. Apart from being designer and stylist at tHERAPY, she works as a free-lance graphic designer.
Paula is the Country Coordinator for Fashion Revolution Argentina. She joined Mariángeles at tHERAPY at the beginning of 2013.
They grew up in Villa Maria, a small city in the province of Cordoba, in Argentina. Both moved to the capital of Cordoba for their university studies. First Mariángeles, a couple of years later, Paula.
Before Mariángeles moved to Germany in 2004, they both lived together in their student appartment in the capital of Cordoba for one year.
There, they already ran small fashion brands, together and separately. Apart from that they would make and pimp their own clothes, and search for vintage treasures and rarities all over.
Mariangeles grew a collection of antiquities for home décor and also vintage clothing.
They would both dress following their own personal taste back then. Buying the last new clothes was way too expensive.
Paula was always more into following trends, Mariángeles not.
Paula became a consumerist as soon as she cold afford it and loved to have the latest items in the market.
In Europe Mariángeles soon discovered the many possibilities of getting second hand and vintage clothes but still, she was also buying a lot of fast fashion, because it was affordable and it was something that didn't existed in Argentina.
But all that finished when they developed tHERAPY together with a growing criticism towards fast fashion and in general, the big fashion industry.
"tHERAPY was our way to recover our creative side. To open the doors and windows of our souls. To let people come inside our world, and to go out ourselves. To interact, to do something inspiring for others, as others has inspired us in the past.
Exorcise means to us to open those doors and windows and let fresh air come inside, but also let negative thoughts, ghosts, fears fly away. We are exorcising them.
tHERAPY started as an urgent need to recover our creative side and to do things with our own hands to heal our souls. Once we found our own creations to be beautiful and useful also for others, it felt amazing.
So this is our tHERAPY. Our connection to heaven of creativity… and to earth."
What makes tHERAPY unique
tHERAPY Recycle and Exorcise is an upcycling fashion brand based in Berlin and South America with a playful, alternative and inclusive approach to sustentability throught DIY upcycling and a style that has become recognizable and a reference for newer brands for which tHERAPY has created a path to follow: sustainable fashion can also be experimental, daring and playful. And actually, all fashion should be sustainable!
tHERAPY has introduced the sustainability issue there where nobody was talking about it by bringing it together with styles that don't follow the usual sustainable-fashion-trends.
Our aesthetic fluctuates maintaining certain aspects that are at the core of our work. It reflects our intention to push down the walls that contains and opress us. It can be defined as punk-like, but actually as a mixture of underground urban /alternative subcultures and unconvetional lifestyles like BDSM. Our creative energy is sexually-driven. It is driven by our fantasies, our desires, our fears, our love and our anger. Our aesthetic is also determined by the materials we found. Our process so far has been experimenting and working with all kind of materials.
Our ethic mixes material sustainability and circularity with issues such as inclusivity, body positivity and gender redefinition, criticizing what mainstream media and advertising constantly imposes. We support a more human, diverse and open source fashion. We are against dehumanization, exploitation, objectivization and commodification of the humans who make and wear fashion and against the careless exploitation of the planet and its resources.
tHERAPY do not only question the way we (mass) produce and (mass) consume, but also heteronormativity, patriarchy, binarism and the exploitation, commodification and objectivization of the human body.
It also questions the currently dominating economical order where we are educated to compete with one another and aim to eternal linear growth no matter how devastating this is for the earth, its ressources and all forms of life. We propose a less egoic, less toxic, more ethic and more human (fashion) system with collaboration, cooperation and circularity as its base, in balance with the planet and the people.
Who we are
Mariángeles studied Communication Sciences finishing her studies in 2004, in Cordoba, Argentina. She moved to Germany that same year. Has worked as freelance writer for magazines and blogs. She runs a personal blog since 2003, called slave2words.
Mariángeles is an entrepreneur.
In 2007 she founded a tourism entrepreneurship in Berlin together with her partner, called HOLABERLIN, which she runs until today.
She was one of the co-founders of GREEN FASHION TOURS BERLIN.
She is part of future fashion forward e.V. an association that works for a more transparent, social and fair fashion industry and is behind Fashion Revolution Germany in Germany.
Mariángeles worked as a volunteer for Fashion Revolution Germany as member of the Social Media Team and finally as Head of Social Media between 2014 and 2019. Mariángeles founded tHERAPY Recycle and Exorcise in Berlin, in june of 2012.
Paula studied Fashion Design and Advertising in Argentina, finishing both careers in 2009.
Paula lives between Argentina and Berlin. Apart from being designer and stylist at tHERAPY, she works as a free-lance graphic designer.
Paula is the Country Coordinator for Fashion Revolution Argentina. She joined Mariángeles at tHERAPY at the beginning of 2013.
They grew up in Villa Maria, a small city in the province of Cordoba, in Argentina. Both moved to the capital of Cordoba for their university studies. First Mariángeles, a couple of years later, Paula.
Before Mariángeles moved to Germany in 2004, they both lived together in their student appartment in the capital of Cordoba for one year.
There, they already ran small fashion brands, together and separately. Apart from that they would make and pimp their own clothes, and search for vintage treasures and rarities all over.
Mariangeles grew a collection of antiquities for home décor and also vintage clothing.
They would both dress following their own personal taste back then. Buying the last new clothes was way too expensive.
Paula was always more into following trends, Mariángeles not.
Paula became a consumerist as soon as she cold afford it and loved to have the latest items in the market.
In Europe Mariángeles soon discovered the many possibilities of getting second hand and vintage clothes but still, she was also buying a lot of fast fashion, because it was affordable and it was something that didn't existed in Argentina.
But all that finished when they developed tHERAPY together with a growing criticism towards fast fashion and in general, the big fashion industry.
"tHERAPY was our way to recover our creative side. To open the doors and windows of our souls. To let people come inside our world, and to go out ourselves. To interact, to do something inspiring for others, as others has inspired us in the past.
Exorcise means to us to open those doors and windows and let fresh air come inside, but also let negative thoughts, ghosts, fears fly away. We are exorcising them.
tHERAPY started as an urgent need to recover our creative side and to do things with our own hands to heal our souls. Once we found our own creations to be beautiful and useful also for others, it felt amazing.
So this is our tHERAPY. Our connection to heaven of creativity… and to earth."
