旧衣再造做成奢侈定制：Menabóh 请来 Jordanluca 联创掌舵

November 5, 2026

Menabóh creative director Luca Marchetti with co-founder Gaia Rialti.Photo: Paolo Colaiocco for Menabóh

Most upcycling services shout about their sustainability credentials, but Italian startup Menabóh is flipping the script. “Upcycling is too connected to patchwork and the DIY aesthetic,” says co-founder Gaia Rialti. “We could use ‘transforming’ or ‘reimagining’, but I think ‘redesign’ explains exactly what we do: it’s upcycling with an added layer of creative direction. It’s bespoke and made-to-measure; it’s a new kind of luxury.”

Last week, at an 11th-century relais on the border of Siena and Florence, Menabóh soft-launched its luxury fashion redesign service. Having cycled through various iterations since launch, its final form is a redesign atelier, under the creative direction of Luca Marchetti, co-founder of British-Italian menswear label Jordanluca. (Marchetti will continue to lead Jordanluca alongside the new venture.)

Gone are the mystery boxes Menabóh started out with back in 2021, which peddled upcycled fashion alongside vintage pieces and unsold garments from other brands. The same goes for its second guise, an online marketplace used to connect customers with upcyclists across Italy, which left Menabóh with a disjointed tangle of upcycling projects it had little control over, and limited potential for brand recognition.

In their place is now a more refined business model, where customers upload an image of an old garment to the company’s online portal, Marchetti provides a mockup of a redesign and a quote for what it will cost, and the work is fulfilled by an expert tailor local to the consumer. “We realized that we needed one creative director to oversee all of the projects,” explains Rialti. “That’s why we brought in Luca.”

The idea is to function less like an upcycling service and more like a bespoke brand. Each season, Marchetti will release a collection of “archive” pieces, redesigned to showcase the full breadth and depth of the craftsmanship at his disposal. These pieces won’t be for sale — instead, they are a way to inspire customers and look beyond the narrow stereotypes of upcycled fashion, explains Marchetti. “When you have to produce seasonal collections and then go to Paris and sell, sell, sell, you get burnt out,” the designer says. “It feels very healthy to be creative for creativity’s sake. Playing with seasonality also allows us to come into the fashion system and make it feel like a brand people are excited about.”

This model also allows Menabóh to tap into the fashion calendar, appealing to the industry’s love of novelty. Right now, this is limited to a seasonal collection and lookbook, but there’s potential for the business to host its own fashion show down the line, says Rialti. “The best way to explain to people what we do is to show them,” she says.

In Tuscany, Vogue Business met several of Menabóh’s investors, all of whom were modeling redesigned pieces of their own. Among them was former Airbnb executive and angel investor Joe Zadeh and his wife, Becca, each regular Menabóh customers. “[Zadah] invested because he understood that we are trying to change behavior in an industry that has followed the same business model forever,” says Rialti, “which is more or less what Airbnb did.”

But finding other investors with a similarly open mind has proven difficult, she continues. “Most investors just stop listening when you say you are building a B2C fashion business in Italy. Here, we spend so much time explaining what we’re doing that the effort outweighs the value.” That’s why the company is doubling down on London — where Marchetti and many of its tailors are based — for the relaunch. Both consumers and investors are more receptive to redesign in the UK and the US than they are in Italy. The next stop is likely Copenhagen, which has built its fashion week off the back of sustainability requirements.

In giving upcycling the fashion treatment, could Menabóh finally take sustainability mainstream?

Rallying against the upcycling aesthetic

Marchetti wasn’t looking for another job when the creative director role at Menabóh came about. In fact, his friend only sent it across to see if Marchetti knew of another designer who could take it up. Upcycling was not Marchetti’s thing, but something in the job description stirred him up. “I love challenges, and the challenge here is to make the old look new, without relying on a patchwork or a hippy look. It’s a completely different machine,” he explains. “The world doesn’t need more clothes, so I think this is a way forward that puts respect into clothes.”

Once he got started, redesigning came more naturally than anticipated. “Every time we start a collection at Jordanluca, we start from a fabric we hate — something like corduroy or crepe de chine. I have to work like that. It’s like therapy,” he says. With redesign, Marchetti is flexing a similar muscle, taking something undesirable and “exorcising the demon”.

It’s also an opportunity to work closely with expert tailors and pattern-cutters. “I love talking to the pattern-cutters and the tailors,” says Marchetti. “I thrive in the studio, thinking about how to finish a garment or which seams to use. Whether you redesign pieces or not, I think to be a creative director, you need to have that knowledge and be able to communicate with the makers. You need to gain their respect.”

The debut Fall/Winter 2026 collection still has some pieces that look traditionally upcycled: three Armani dresses spliced into one, and an oversized men’s shirt ruched with a drawstring cord. But the majority could pass as entirely new pieces. A particular triumph is the wedding dress reimagined as a bomber jacket with heavily embellished cuffs, or the matching tailored pants. “What people send us is total anarchy — every brand, every color, every fabric,” he says. “We have to make it look new and cool and coherent. That’s the magic.”

A luxury proposition

Price has always been the biggest stumbling block for upcycling businesses. Taking an existing garment apart, salvaging as much of the fabric as possible, and redesigning it into something fresh is a time-intensive process, and time is money. That’s why so many have repositioned themselves as luxury services, including London-based brand ELV Denim and redesign studio Phini.

Most of the redesign projects Menabóh takes on cost between €300 and €1,000, depending on the complexity of the craftmanship, but some sit beyond this range. Marchetti recently turned a wedding dress into a heavily embellished mini skirt, corset and top, while the veil became a dramatic petticoat, totaling €2,500 in labor costs spanning pattern-cutting, tailoring and embellishment. On the opposite end of the spectrum, there’s a slogan T-shirt reimagined as a slinky backless top, which would come in around €150. “I don’t like the word ‘accessible’, but it’s less than buying something new from a luxury brand like Prada or Gucci,” says Rialti.

To appeal to consumers that would otherwise buy new, Menabóh is emphasizing the sentimental value of the fabrics used, and the bespoke made-to-measure service that new luxury brands generally can’t compete with.

Right now, Marchetti is heavily involved in setting the price, drawing on his vast experience running Jordanluca, and working for brands such as Vivienne Westwood, Jil Sander and Erdem. Generally, he offers customers two options — one that is more accessibly priced, and another that showcases the full breadth of Menabóh’s craftsmanship, taking into account the client’s personal budget. “If a client just wants their initials on a shirt, I’m not just going to offer them a guy with a pre-programmed machine,” he says. “I’m going to try and make those initials as beautiful as possible. That’s my job.”

Next year, the company is aiming to complete one redesign per day, but to turn a profit, it needs to be hitting 100 to 150 redesigns per month, says Rialti. “We are investing in awareness right now, and I really think word of mouth will make a huge difference,” the co-founder says. It is also exploring the salon (salotto) format, inviting key customers to host redesign parties in their homes, with four or five friends who can road-test the service over an aperitivo — eventually extending this set-up to outside communities. “It’s intimate and personal, and you can discuss the story of your garment with your friends. There’s also potential to tap into members’ clubs for similar events.”

Leaning into the sentimental value of clothing

To help its higher price point land, Menabóh is targeting women between the ages of 30 and 55 — those with a high-net income and high-quality pieces in their closets. Still, it can cater to those looking to revamp a high street purchase they really love. “The main point is the emotional connection people have to their clothes,” explains Rialti. “We can redesign something from Zara if you care about it, or something that isn’t real leather. Our last collection includes a men’s shirt from Marks and Spencer. If you really care about the piece, it still makes sense for you to spend money on redesigning it.”

Marchetti is not precious about this either. “You can’t choose what people get attached to,” he says, noting that his favorite piece of clothing is a worn-out gray tank he bought in Sports Direct for £3 two decades ago. He actually finds it harder to rework pieces that are perfectly designed and constructed. “If someone brings me a perfect Saint Laurent coat, I’m not pretentious enough to think I can make it better, but for some reason, that person is not wearing it anymore. I’m here to give them a chance to change it, so they can move forward with it.”

Leaning into the sentimental value of clothing raises the stakes. Just look at the blazer Menabóh redesigned for brand ambassador and secondhand fashion stylist Bay Garnett. When Garnett’s father passed in 2014, she was overcome by grief, so the majority of his clothes went to charity. But over time, Garnett came to regret that decision. “My dad wasn’t flashy at all, but he did care about his suits. He got them all made at Huntsman on Savile Row,” she explains.

Almost a decade later, Garnett received a message from a friend, out of the blue. “Her dad found a Huntsman blazer in a charity shop with my dad’s initials in it. It was his jacket. Even now, thinking about it makes me want to cry.”

Determined to get as much wear out of the jacket as possible, Garnett turned to Menabóh. The first step was to tailor it to her size, while being careful to preserve the bespoke construction. Then, there was the question of taste — turning it into something fit for a vintage-loving stylist, heavily inspired by ’70s glamor and ’80s New York. After a consultation with Marchetti, Garnett settled on adding a spattering of dark brown leather floral motifs, to complement the navy and pale blue check. “I loved the simplicity, and the color combination,” she says. “Hopefully, my daughter might like to keep it after me.”

Bella Webb is the sustainability editor at Vogue Business and an associate lecturer at Central Saint Martins. Her coverage spans from raw materials and regulation to supply chain transformation and systems change. Bella regularly moderates panels for agenda-setting organisations, including the British Fashion Council, European Delegation, Global Fashion Summit and ... Read More

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