TEES REBORN: BRAVADO’S RADICAL UPCYCLING PROJECT AIMS TO THREAD A GREENER FUTURE FOR MERCH BUSINESS

More than 400,000 leftover tour t-shirts will be respun into new items and sold on tours this fall

NEW YORK – July 1, 2025 – Bravado, the world’s leading artist merchandise and lifestyle company, announced today the launch of an ambitious program to upcycle obsolete or unsold t-shirts and other merchandise at scale for use in new products. Last week, more than 400,000 unsold t-shirts and other merchandise left Bravado’s warehouse facility in Nashville, TN, beginning a journey via cargo ship to Tangiers, Morocco, to be upcycled at Hallotex, one of the world’s leading sustainable textile manufacturers. The six-week process will break down the old merch items, spinning them into new yarn that will be made into an estimated 280,000 new 100% recycled cotton t-shirt blanks to be utilized by Bravado artists in the fall.

“When I came into Bravado in 2021, it was quickly apparent to me that several of our most important artist clients wanted to include more sustainable practices in their merchandise offerings,” said Matt Young, President of Bravado. “Billie Eilish’s mother, Maggie Baird, was at the forefront of challenging us to develop products and practices that were less harmful to the planet. In a way, this scalable upcycling effort is a credit to her passion – she and Billie show the power that one artist has to really make a difference. What started with Billie now includes dozens of artists, an upcycling program at scale and a passionate desire to continue our progress in this area.”

“To our knowledge, this is the most ambitious artist merchandise upcycling project ever undertaken,” said Dylan Siegler, Head of Sustainability for Universal Music Group, Bravado’s parent company. “This is just one important component that Bravado and other UMG companies are undertaking to minimize our impact on the planet.”

Today, Bravado has several merchandise upcycling/recycling programs. Recently, the company forged collaborations with Suay (Billie Eilish), Lost Love (Social Distortion) and Fashion-Enter (The Rolling Stones) to create new items from old stock. Innovations in t-shirt blank manufacturing driven by such environmentally concerned artists as Billie Eilish, FINNEAS and Lorde, were applied to dozens of other Bravado clients including Camila Cabello, The Weeknd and KAROL G. In fact, this past April for Earth Month, nearly 50 Bravado artists offered some kind of upcycled or sustainable merch items in their online stores, including a number of legacy artists, such as The Rolling Stones, KISS, Bob Marley, The Beach Boys and others.

Matt Young concluded, “While this Hallotex project is our biggest step forward yet in innovating in the sustainability space, we’re really just scratching the surface on what can be done to make artist merch offerings more sustainable and less impactful to the environment.”

Photo from UMG’s most recent Sustainability Summit in Nashville in early April that includes left to right: Matt Young (President, Bravado), Susan Mazo (EVP of Global Communications, Universal Music Group), Maggie Baird (mother of Billie Eilish), and Dylan Siegler (SVP, Head of Sustainability at Universal Music Group). Photo by R. Weber

###

ABOUT BRAVADO

Bravado lives at the crossroads of music, fashion, and culture. We understand the power of smart merchandising, and we know how to create products that spark organic, emotional connections between fans and artists. Our world class capabilities have made us the leading provider of consumer, lifestyle, and brand management service around the world. With teams in 40 countries, we create a tailored approach for every project — from creating new spaces in the market to bringing an artist’s creative vision to life. Bravado is about building brands and legacies that live on, beyond the music. Bravado is a division of Universal Music Group, the world leader in music-based entertainment. https://www.bravado.com/