Heading home one day, Kyle Madrid walked by a dirty, old ski jacket. He stopped and looked at it — an old, cherry-red ski patrol jacket, this one issued to members of the Alyeska Ski Patrol.
The jacket’s original sheen was now dulled by dirt and grime.
“Nasty … really nasty,” Madrid later recalled.
He passed on it and continued home, but a few days later he came upon the jacket again. This time, he saw something else entirely.
“I was like, ‘This is gonna make a sweet bucket hat,’” he said
He used The North Face logo and iconic white cross to adorn the hat, which he sold for $80.
Madrid is part of the growing trend of artists repurposing and upcycling clothes in Anchorage, including a number of local artists who have started their own creative businesses post-pandemic, as well as thrift and vintage stores that have opened in the last several years.
He is often found at Tent City Press working on his next project. Madrid is the mind behind Rummage Reworks, which specializes in recutting and repurposing material, from a balaclava constructed from Carhartt and Duluth clothing scraps to a bucket hat made out of vintage couch pillows.
“I started thrifting when I was super little, my grandma used to take me,” Madrid said. “I would find [Playstation] 1 games and all that stuff. So I’ve always loved thrifting. I got into it, for fashion maybe [in] like the last few years.”
Aspen Raney, owner of Kuration Collective, is always on the hunt for Alaska vintage and streetwear. She sells her second-hand finds through her Depop page, a social e-commerce platform where users can buy and resell their items. With more than 50,000 followers, the Kuration Collective Depop page produces steady sales thanks to Raney’s keen eye for both fashion and nostalgia.
Most of Raney’s inventory comes from thrifting, but she also rotates through items in her own personal closet.
“I found that sourcing online can also be very fruitful,” Raney said. “It’s similar to thrifting… I have to do a lot of consistent searching, but I have found some of my best items this way.”
While the upcycling scene often intertwines with apps like Depop and Instagram, there are also new brick-and-mortar outlets in Anchorage.
Madrid’s work can be found for sale at Rage City Vintage, which was opened in Spenard in December 2022 by MacKenzie Tubbs alongside local musician Emma Hill.
Rage City features over 75 local small businesses, artists, creators, makers and curators — people who Tubbs says “have cool things” and “make cool things.”
Tubbs began her own thrifting journey in 2019 through Third Eye Finds — a page where she posts her upcycling finds. She connected with Hill, who began Alaskan Thrift Hound a year later.
“There were so many cool things that we wanted to do more of within the community,” Tubbs said. “So having an actual homebase space has given us a lot of opportunity.”
Once a month, the Rage City space hosts Spenard Song Circle — a listening room series featuring two guest songwriters that Hill hosts. Each song performed is accompanied by the story of the song in order to help the audience understand the artist and their creative process. The next Spenard Song Circle, featuring Hannah Yoter and Matt Faubion, is Friday from 6 to 9 p.m.
Like Rage City Vintage, Tent City Press has been a catalyst for the creative community. The membership-based studio, located in the 4th Avenue Marketplace building, offers space and equipment for screen printing, sewing, and more.
Local musician Bethlehem Shalom also creates clothing at Tent City. She began working with textiles and experimenting with creating clothes in 2021.
When she got her space at Tent City, she began sewing more clothes and learning how to make her own patterns, she said. She’s found that she likes making pants the most.
“In the beginning of my sewing journey I couldn’t really conceptualize how to sew pants so naturally that was one of the first things I wanted to sew successfully,” Shalom said. “If it’s a simple pattern or when I copy a pair of pants I can make it easier by using an elastic waistband or making it look more put together with darts and a non-?elastic waistband. There’s room to play with the design and what can I say, I love pants.”
She says her favorite item that she’s made has “gotta be my cuckoo clock watch.”
“I’m super proud of it,” she added. “Not all ideas make it out of the conceptual stage, or if they do, sometimes they don’t make it far during construction — but I really surprised myself. It reminded me of when I was a kid making things out of popcorn boxes and rubber bands. Trying to be creative from scratch, sometimes you have that moment when it comes together that you’re like ‘I’m a genius!’”
Sam Davenport is a writer residing in Anchorage. She's a leo and a plant-person, and loves spending quality time with her dog, Aspen. She is a Real Housewives fan and has been called a Bravo historian.
