Dead stock, alive & kicking
It was while working at a football federation that one of the founders of FC88 came across a big pile of deadstock. All the teams got their new kit, but there wasn’t a good solution in place for the old ones.
When diving into this ‘hidden’ problem, she found out that a lot of apparel gets destroyed, after first having gathered dust in some storage room (or two). Other apparel is donated or sold to bulk buyers. But when diving a little bit deeper into those solutions, the ugly truth was that much of this stock still ended up on landfills in countries like Kenya and Ghana.
FC88 started out with upcycling shirts into bags. Making new product from apparel that kept the emotional value for the fan and brand value for club and sponsors alive. Soon after launching their first products, the need for more type of products arose. Incoming hats and other accesories.
Currently, FC88 works for football clubs, football federations and other sport organisations in upcycling their deadstock into a whole range of products. For corporate gifting and fan merchandise. Since its launch, FC88 created more than 30.000 new items from old football apparel. Which is still just the begining…
We are your upcycling partner .
We are not your typical licensee
Because we don’t sell any upcycled product ourselves, we aren’t a licensee in the traditional sense. We work in collaboration with our partners to upcycle their apparel into new items. Often we create upcycling schemes with our clients, to maximize impact throughout the season.
We are your upcycling partner
Our partners ship their deadstock to one of our studios. There, the apparel is reworked and shipped back to the client. They decide what happens with the upcycled product. Often they are given away as unique corporate gifts or sold as upcycled merchandise.
Maximizing the fabric and circular materials
It’s easy to make a bucket hat from a shirt. But how can we maximize the use of all fabric? We often advise our clients to not make just one product out of a shirt, short or pants. Because from left-over fabric, we can still make sunglass pouches or wallets. And we try to use as much of circular materials for lining of product. Often the inside of our bags is made from discarded banners.
Upcycling as local as possible
Because our clients are located across Europe, we have made sure that we can upcycle as local as possible. From our studios in Rotterdam, (the Netherlands), Brightong (United Kingdom) and Porto (Portugal), we make beautiful upcycled items. All made by hand, making sure every item is unique. Made by Chloe, Anna, Salim and many others.
Getting curious? Contact us!
FOUNDED BY SPORT INDUSTRY PROFESSIONALS
FC88 was founded in 2020 by Nicole Bekkers and Matthijs Smit. Both had been working for over 10 years in the professional sports industry and worked for sport organisations, event organizers and sponsors. With their knowledge on sports marketing, sponsorship and event marketing, they can assist any sport organisation or event organisation in identifying deadstock, helping to get major stakeholders on board and upcycle available apparel into very cool items for fans, sponsors and other stakeholders.