Overview:
-BeReworn, Samantha Cerwin's platform for sustainable fashion events, started with an event in the backyard of The Old Miami.
-Last month, Cerwin played a key role in the Detroit chapter of Fashion Revolution Week.
-She said she’s learning how to make her sustainable business sustainable for herself, too.
Samantha Cerwin is the founder of BeReworn, an online platform for sustainable community fashion events like clothing swaps, upcycling workshops, and conferences held across the United States and Mexico.
Cerwin found her way to Detroit in 2022 after earning her associate degree in event management from Hudson County Community College in New Jersey, where she moved to from her home state of Coahuila, Mexico.
Her first winter in Detroit was hard, she said. The cold, lack of sun, and inability to work while waiting for her green card made the transition difficult, she said.
“I didn’t know that during the cold you guys get like, zero sun,” Cerwin said. “You won’t let me work. I don’t know anyone. I can’t go outside because there’s a winter storm.”
Cerwin loved fashion, and she wanted to meet people, she told Planet Detroit. That’s how she got the idea for BeReworn. She hosted her first swap in the backyard of The Old Miami in 2023, made friends, and launched the business.
How BeReworn was born
She brought BeReworn to life through TechTown’s programs Start Studio and Traction, where her tech-based business idea could be tested in the real world and refined through mentorship. Cerwin met her co-founder, Lukas Siatka, through the Y Combinator platform, a technology startup company helping pair cofounders, and has been supported by Venture 313, a fund for Detroit entrepreneurs.
Her next integration to the online platform will be a community forum where users can interact while not necessarily having to commit to going to an event.
After observing user behavior on her platform, Cerwin said she noticed folks didn’t go to their first event until some time after signing up with BeReworn. She said people like to watch first before trying something new.
“If you push them, they’re just gonna experience it once, and they’re gonna go back to their normal lives,” Cerwin said. “And if they do it as a choice, they’re gonna understand what sustainability means to them.”
Welcome to Café y Chisme, where we provide the café, and you provide the chisme. This is a casual event every other Friday with me, Planet Detroit reporter Isabelle Tavares. I aim to speak with Southwest community members about the environmental and public health challenges (and wins!) in our communities. These 45-minute conversations take place at cafes across Southwest Detroit. Whether you’re a community health worker, a truck driver, a school teacher, a newly arrived immigrant, lo que sea, I want to learn from you!
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Fashion Revolution week, an annual global fashion activism campaign, kept Cerwin busy during the last week of April. She helped run the Detroit chapter of the initiative, showcasing nearly two dozen events in Detroit – zine workshops, panel discussions, film screenings – all found on her online platform.
The Monday after the bustle of Fashion Revolution week, Cerwin said she fell asleep at her desk.
She said she’s learning how to make her sustainable business sustainable for herself, too.
“When it comes to tech, everyone thinks that every founder always has to be in grind mode … suffering,” Cerwin said. “It’s hard sometimes to just take a step back, because you see everyone just burning their eyelashes.”
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