At Dirty Hippie, customers can select patches and pieces of T-shirt to sew onto pre-worn jackets, to create their own custom clothing. Photos via Lance Kashian & Co.

What the owner describes as “Build-a-Bear” with human clothing debuted in River Park as a unique way to recycle old clothing.

The “Dirty Hippie” concept opened inside Eye Candy Fashion Boutique a year ago. Owner/operator Stacy DeWall says business has been booming ever since.

Customers choose from stacks of “upcycled” military and flannel jackets, jeans and shorts and then choose patches or parts of T-shirts to adorn the jackets.

 

Customers then return a couple days later to pick up the finished clothing.

Sometimes customers will bring in their own patches or T-shirts to put on the jackets, says DeWall.

The idea was born of DeWall’s desire to keep clothes out of the landfill.

She finds items of clothing still in good quality from thrift stores and puts them to use. People also bring her their own used clothing. Since Dirty Hippie began, DeWall estimates she has kept 2,000 pieces of clothing from the landfill.

She has a lot of return customers and she says each piece is one of a kind.

 

She even hired a dedicated tailor to sew the patches on the clothing.

DeWall expanded Eye Candy into River Park two years ago. It is beside White House Black Market and across from H & M. She opened her original brick-and-mortar store in Madera seven years ago after operating a mobile boutique a year before that.

Because of lockdown measures in response to Covid, DeWall said she had to close the store in Madera.