The Glossy Podcast

Re/Done co-founder Sean Barron never set out to launch a sustainable denim brand. “We thought it was a project,” versus a company, he said on the latest episode of the Glossy Podcast. His business partner, Jamie Mazur, “had this idea of taking Levi's apart and making jeans that fit girls,” Barron said. “It took nine months for us to make that work. Then we built a website.” On the brand’s launch date in 2014, after Bella Hadid hyped the brand in an Instagram post, the first pairs of Re/Done denim sold out in 12 minutes at midnight and attracted a 1,200-person waitlist. “Vogue and every kind of media covered it,” said Barron. “It was like, ‘Oh, maybe we have something here.’” Now, Re/Done is the biggest purchaser of vintage Levi's worldwide. To date, it’s upcycled 120,000 pairs of Levi's. The company’s ongoing partnership with Levi’s is key to its success among millennial shoppers, said Barron. “What resonates and [works] to build a community in the millennial space are [styles] with scarcity, exclusivity