100 Hoodies Later: A reflection on making shit.

I didn't set out to make 100 hoodies. Actually, I didn't set out to make fucking hoodies at all.

I made the first one because I had an idea in my head and wanted to see if I could make it exist in real life. I didn't know what I was doing. I wasn't thinking about starting a business. I wasn't thinking about developing an art style or building a community or what any of this might eventually turn into.

I was just making shit. And somewhere along the way, I made 99 more. That's fucking wild to me.

Because when I look at the hoodie I made on the 20th of August 2025 and compare it to what comes out of my studio now, they're completely different. But they're also not.

The bones of The Scrap Collective were already there. I just couldn't see them yet. I didn't need to. I just needed to make the next one.

You don't find your style. You make it.

I think when you're creative, there's this pressure to know who you are before you've actually had enough time to figure it out.

What's your style? What's your niche? What's your colour palette? What makes your work different? What are you trying to say?

Fuck knows.

I was trying to sew a hoodie. I didn't sit down and develop "The Scrap Collective aesthetic". I didn't decide exactly what my work should look like and then execute some perfectly thought-out plan. I made things. 

Over and over and over again.

Some were safe. Some were fucking weird. Some worked immediately. Some didn't look right until the very last piece went on. Some I was unbelievably proud of at the time and probably wouldn't make now.

And that's exactly how it should be.

Because you can't think your way into having a creative identity. You have to make your way into one. Every single hoodie taught me something, even when I wasn't consciously trying to learn.

I learned that colours don't necessarily need to match to belong together. I learned that sometimes the fabric I wasn't sure about is the thing that makes the entire piece work. I learned that I like things a little fucked up. I learned that I don't want everything perfectly symmetrical. I learned that something can look unfinished and still be finished. I learned that there's a difference between something being technically imperfect and something being bad.

Most importantly, I learned what I like.

Not what Pinterest likes. Not what somebody who has been sewing for 30 years thinks I should like. Not what somebody scrolling Facebook thinks I should make.

Me.

And you can't really skip that part.

I had to make the shit ones too.

There's something incredibly freeing about looking back at your old work and thinking, what the fuck was I doing? Because it means you got better.

I could pull apart that first hoodie now and tell you everything I'd do differently. But I won't.

It still hangs on my wall. I still wear it. And I fucking love it. Not because it's the best hoodie I've ever made, because it's proof that I started before I knew what I was doing.

That hoodie didn't need to be perfect. It just needed to exist.

If I'd waited until I had the skills I have now, there wouldn't be a Scrap Collective, because the skills I have now came from making it, then making another, then another.

You don't get to hoodie number 100 without making hoodie number one.

And unfortunately, hoodie number one doesn't get to magically have the experience of the 99 hoodies that haven't happened yet. That's the deal.

Your first painting doesn't get your hundredth painting's brush strokes, your first cake doesn't get your hundredth cake's instinct, your first video doesn't get your hundredth video's confidence.

Your first business idea doesn't get everything you're going to learn from actually running the fucking business.

We expect ourselves to be good at things we haven't given ourselves enough time to be bad at yet, and I think that's one of the quickest ways to kill something you could have eventually been fucking incredible at.

Somewhere in the repetition, I started trusting myself.

I still second guess things.

There are still moments when I'm standing in my studio holding two pieces of fabric against each other wondering whether I've completely lost the plot. Sometimes I put something down, walk away, come back and hate it, sometimes I change the entire direction halfway through, sometimes Damien gets shown two options like he's on the judging panel of Project Runway when I've probably already decided which one I'm using anyway.

The difference now is that I don't panic when I don't immediately know the answer, I know I'll figure it out. That's what making 100 hoodies gave me.

Not some magical ability to make the perfect creative decision every time, evidence that I can work it out. I've fucked it up before, I've unpicked it, I've covered it, I've chopped something off, I've added something else. I've stood back and realized the thing I thought ruined it actually made it better.

I've learned that sometimes the answer isn't making something more perfect. It's making it more mine, and after enough times doing that, you start trusting yourself.

The weirdest part is that they left.

That's probably the bit that still gets me. I made these things with my hands and then sent them out into the world. They're in wardrobes I've never seen. They're being worn to supermarkets and concerts and school pick-ups and pubs and wherever the fuck else people are taking them.

Somebody has spilled food on one. Someone's probably fallen asleep in one. Somebody has probably had a really shit day and pulled one on because it's comfortable.

Pieces of clothing that existed in completely different places ended up on my studio floor, got chopped apart, became something else, and then left again.

One hundred times.

When I started this, I was looking for people to learn alongside me, instead, people started watching me learn. Then some of them decided they wanted to learn too, then people started wearing the things I made while I was learning.

And somehow a thing I started without a business plan, without a grand vision and without being anywhere near "ready" became The Scrap Collective.

I'm really glad I didn't wait until I was ready.

I don't want to arrive.

Hoodie number 100 isn't the finish line. I hope hoodie number 200 makes number 100 look safe. I hope I look back in another year and see things I'm doing now that I'd never do again. I hope my construction changes, I hope my colour choices get weirder. I hope I try things that don't fucking work.

I hope I make something one day that makes me wonder what possessed me to think it was a good idea.

Because the alternative is deciding I've learned enough, and that sounds fucking boring.

I don't want to perfect The Scrap Collective until every hoodie looks exactly how you expect a Scrap Collective hoodie to look. I want to keep surprising myself.

That's the whole point.

Make the fucking thing.

If there's anything 100 hoodies have taught me, it's that you are probably never going to feel qualified enough to start.

You don't need to know your style yet, you don't need the best equipment, you don't need to know where it's going, you don't need a five-year plan for the thing you haven't even made once.

And you definitely don't need your first attempt to look like somebody else's hundredth.

You just need to make something, then pay attention to what you liked about it, pay attention to what you hated, make another one. Change something. Fuck something up. Figure out why. Make another.

Eventually you'll stop trying so hard to find your style and realize you've left little pieces of it across everything you've made.

You'll look backwards and see it before you ever noticed it happening, that's what happened to me.

One hoodie became a few. A few became a drop. A drop became another.

Somewhere in there, strangers started following along, some started buying them, some started making their own, and then one day I looked around and realized I'd made one hundred fucking hoodies.

I still don't know exactly where any of this is going. That's probably my favourite part.

I just know I'm going to keep making shit.

Because the only reason I ever got to hoodie number 100... was that I was willing to make hoodie number one.