Emergency Room, based in Lebanon, aims at providing a sustainable and ethical alternative to fast fashion. The name of the brand derives from its belief that fashion is sick and needs help. Using unexpected materials – from old bed sheets, curtains and fabric designed to upholster sofas, to a roll of waterproof tablecloth printed with a misaligned advert for a German beer – it designs statement pieces. The brand is based on two axis: ethical treatment of garment workers; and the sustainable side of fashion, which is the promise to use only dead stock fabric and secondhand clothes.

The brand redesigns and embellishes garments to give them a new lease of life. Other pieces are made from scratch using high-quality fabrics from rolls that are partially damaged or almost finished, known as dead stock. Saving money on materials allows the brand to pay the dozen or so tailors it works with more per piece as well as ensuring that unwanted fabric doesn’t end up in landfill. Each piece is unique because it comes from limited quantities of a fabric, and that has shaped the eclectic DNA of the brand. Emergency Room’s Instagram page not only showcases the clothes, but also ¬features photographs of the tailors who work on them.