Every material Jo works with at Exiled arrives in large containers – ripped, unlabelled, in no great state.These are the materials at the end of the line: the ones that couldn’t be donated or resold, heading for RDF if not for intervention.
She describes the studio as a laboratory of transformation. Waste materials don't just get used – they dictate the creativity. For her, this is where Exiled comes to life – setting out to prove that waste isn’t just to be written off.
She and the team wash, iron, sort, and unpick it all, saving everything, down to the zips and buttons for future use. The unpicking is slow, but careful work. Rush it, Jo says, and you lose what you are trying to salvage. But it is also research: understanding how a fabric handles, what it might be paired with and what other life it could have.
Jo has worked extensively with luxury car upholstery leather for Exiled. Making tops, she has developed a technique of punching holes and weaving the leather, giving the rigid fabric breathability and movement, along with a new textural integrity it wouldn’t otherwise have.
