Public Thread is a textile upcycling company. We create bold upcycled goods from existing materials in order to creative re-use materials that would have otherwise been thrown away. Our talented staff design around surplus and scrap textiles left over from manufacturers and make small batch products in our shop in Grand Rapids, MI.
Founder Story Janay started Public Thread in her kitchen in 2016 with the goal to establish a worker owned cut & sew manufacturing business for apparel and accessories. Since this time Public Thread has grown and evolved to exclusively work with upcycled textiles due to the high volume of scrap and surplus material in their community. Prior to starting Public Thread Janay worked for 13 years leading community level systems change work in the public and nonprofit sectors, with a focus on how to disrupt oppressive systems and re-tool them to better serve the needs of under-resourced families and ensure they are able to meet their own basic needs.
