This Unexpected Use for Starbucks Coffee Bags Delivers an Amazingly Stylish Outcome

Tai Saint-Louis
Tai Saint-Louis
Tai Saint-Louis is a Haitian-born, Atlanta-based journalist & content development consultant. Over the course of her 20 year career she has contributed to Mass Appeal, Ebony.com, WatchLoud.com, Bossip.com, Creative Loafing, Scratch, XXL, The Source, Upscale Magazine and AllHipHop.com, and worked with brands including the Combat Jack Show and the A3C Festival. She is also the co-author of The Art Behind The Tape, the first coffee table book about the history of mixtape culture.
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published Mar 28, 2022
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Credit: Courtesy of Starbucks

If you’ve ever heard of someone’s outfit being referred to as a “burlap sack,” it likely wasn’t a compliment. But as designer Monday Blues recently proved, that doesn’t always have to be the case.

She was captured by photographer Johnny Cirillo on his @watchingnewyork profiles on TikTok and Instagram, modeling a custom pant suit made out of burlap bags upcycled from Starbucks. The outfit, as worn by Monday, features the original printed coffee labels from the bags, to which she added her brand and other hand-stitched details. The suit consists of a pair of pants featuring two utility pockets on each side and a knee-length jacket boasting an unfinished hem and sleeves.

“The backstory is, I actually created this while homeless on a train in Chicago,” she tells Cirillo. “So I made this by hand.” She adds that she was inspired after seeing the burlap coffee bags on display at a Starbucks, a company which ironically often pushes consumers to reuse and recycle its products. The baristas gave her a few sacks at no cost and she turned it into fashion.

While the outfit was created out of necessity, the cargo pants alone are available for purchase for $600, according to the website linked to Monday’s Instagram page proving that the designer has come a long way from that Chicago train. Now calling New York City home, she’s making waves as a stylist, designer, and model (she walked multiple runways at last year’s Spring/Summer New York Fashion Week).

Whether you’re a fan of DIY looks or prefer to pull your outfits together through retail stores, Cirillo’s instagram feed, which he describes as “a photo project dedicated to what I consider fashion on the streets of New York City,” is a great source of inspiration.