Industrial Sewing and Innovation Center (ISAIC) | Detroit, MI

Upcycling textiles aiming to invigorate the circular textile economy through scaling production while expanding employment opportunities

ISAIC is a mature non-profit that is developing a scalable model to upcycle textile scraps into usable home goods products, like laptop cases and potholders, through pinfelting. During the program, the team advanced their project to be funding ready. The team lined-up clothing brand and manufacturing partners for a circular economy roundtable. The project team is looking to get product input and commitments from these partners once the pilot is started. They improved their understanding of the equipment needed, sourcing and quoting the pinfelting machine. The project team connected with potential feedstock partners, like Goodwill West Michigan, at the RIT Pitch Competition. Once the project team receives enough funding for the machine deposit, the team plans on starting the pilot project.