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Picture this: You’re cleaning out your kids’ closets and realize a quarter of their clothes still have tags on them. Most people would just shrug, donate the items and move on with their day. But Kimberly Lau? She turned that moment into a full-blown sustainable fashion business, Project ReWear, that’s now making waves across Southern California.
From Numbers to Vintage Finds
Before becoming a sustainable fashion entrepreneur, Lau spent 24 years in wealth management. She wasn’t the sales type — more of a team builder, working on the “horizontal level,” as she puts it. Despite being good at her job and loving her team, something was missing.
“I loved it, but it wasn’t my passion,” Lau explains. “I didn’t even know what my true passion was until I was 40. I’m 51 now.”
Her revelation on her true passion came two years ago while cleaning her sons’ closets. Surrounded by piles of unworn clothes (many still with tags), she started researching and uncovered some mind-blowing stats about the fashion industry.
“I heard that it took 1,800 gallons of water to make one pair of jeans, which is equivalent to almost nine years of drinking water for one person,” she said. “Or 712 gallons of water to make one cotton T-shirt. I was like, ‘Okay, something’s got to be done here.’”
Thrift Store Detective Work
With her newfound awareness and freedom from selling her business shares, Lau became a woman on a mission. She dove headfirst into thrift stores — a passion inherited from her grandmother — and noticed that around 25% of items still had tags on them.
This wasn’t just casual browsing. In true finance-professional fashion, Lau researched over 30,000 items across Southern California thrift stores, talking to staff, running focus groups and learning about fabrics and brands.
“I spent a year personally doing focus groups. Just sitting there with a chair,” Lau laughed.
Her networking eventually led her to her business partner, Linda, who had volunteered at a thrift store for seven years and brought more than 20 years of global fashion experience to the table. Together, they launched Project ReWear, starting with just 800 square feet of rented space before graduating to their own brick-and-mortar location in December 2023.
Not Your Average Thrift Store
Project ReWear isn’t just another secondhand shop. While many businesses prioritize profit margins, Lau’s approach is refreshingly different.
“I only charge a few dollars more than what I buy it for,” she admitted. “When I say we’re for profit, it’s really a charity.”
One of her most innovative ideas? The Landfill Project — where they weigh customers’ purchases to track how much textile waste they’re diverting from landfills. Customers who snap a photo of their “weight saved” and share it on social media get 10% off, and the store offers community discounts when they reach certain goals.
When Lau told me that every second, one garbage truckload of textile waste (approximately 8,000 pounds) is sent to landfills or overseas, her 2023 goal came into perspective: to save one truckload — essentially capturing one second’s worth of waste.
Fiery Passion: The LA Strong Collection
Beyond environmental impact, Project ReWear supports communities in need. Their recent LA Strong Collection supports Southern California wildfire victims through various foundations and funds.
The collection features pre-loved shirts screen-printed with an image of the now-famous “beacon of hope” — the blue VW van that miraculously survived the wildfires. Lau notes that “A lot of people thought it was a fake photo, but it’s true!”
The project goes beyond just selling shirts. Lau reached out to Ellie, a woman who lost her home in the Palisades fires, styled her with new clothes and even featured her in a recent KTLA Channel 5 fashion show.
Small Moments, Big Impacts
When asked about her most rewarding experiences, Lau doesn’t mention sales figures or press coverage. Instead, she shares two touching stories.
The first involves her 10th-grade son, who wrote about her in his application for an entrepreneurship program at his school. “It was all about me and starting Project ReWear and how proud he is of me and making a difference for them, and how it’s not about profit, it’s about people,” she says. “It made me tear up.”
The second story showcases the community Project ReWear is building. A customer from The Valley visited with her husband and mother, the latter visiting from New York. She wanted to post how much weight she had saved but couldn’t figure out how to post on social media. A month later, they received a handwritten card from New York with $10 cash enclosed — the mother felt terrible about not contributing in full and wanted to make it right. This story truly encapsulates the meaning behind Project ReWear, not just for Lau but for everyone who steps foot in the store.
“It’s like-minded people, who are just about honesty, wanting to help make a difference,” Lau reflects.
What’s Next for Project ReWear?
Lau’s calendar is packed with upcoming initiatives. April brings Earth Day celebrations (which happens to fall on her birthday– so happy early birthday, Kimberly!), a vintage prom dress campaign complete with a fashion show and themed collections for festival season, aiming for the likes of Coachella and Stagecoach.
The website is getting a theme-based revamp, with the first drop focused on festival wear.
“We’re going to find all this cool vintage stuff from thrift stores, put it up, style it for festivals,” Lau explains.
Breaking Fashion Norms
When asked what advice she’d give to fashion students, Lau doesn’t hesitate: “Fashion is changing. What worked yesterday does not work tomorrow, so peek outside the box and feel confident in that. Don’t listen to the outside chatter.”
For students interested in sustainable fashion specifically, she emphasizes the importance of networking: “Don’t be narrow-minded. Open your mind because I started at one place, and it detoured to a different place. Go out and talk to everybody and anybody.”
She recounts DMing an eco-conscious fashion designer with only five followers on her account. “A week later, I drove out to her house in North Hollywoo,d and then she started introducing me to people. It just spins off. But it was only because I was trying to contact people and learn everything.”
Sustainable Fashion: More Than Just a Trend
Considering that Project ReWear has already caught the attention of NBC and Forbes in the infancy of the brand, it’s clear that Lau’s unconventional approach is resonating. (Just another wonderful example of moms running the world!)
“We are all role models,” she said thoughtfully, “and we all need to be held accountable.”
For anyone looking to make more sustainable fashion choices, Lau’s journey offers a simple but powerful lesson: sometimes the biggest impacts start with the smallest observations. Whether it’s noticing those unworn clothes in your closet or questioning where your water goes when you buy a new pair of jeans, being curious about your consumption is the first step toward change.
If you happen to be in Southern California, stop by Project ReWear; for non-locals, their website hosts a plethora of fashion for you. Just be sure to snap and share your landfill savings — and maybe even make Lau’s day with a handwritten thank-you note.