Mason Wagner began designing clothes in 2020 and shifted to upcycling pre-worn garments to reduce waste
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A viral TikTok video of a custom jacket made from sentimental fabrics brought him hundreds of personal requests
Wagner tells PEOPLE his work combines philanthropy, sustainability and storytelling
Mason Wagner's sewing and design career has taken him on different paths.
This Wisconsin resident, 25, started designing clothes in 2020 while at the University of Wisconsin–Whitewater, where he and his roommate launched a brand called Samaritan.
"The idea was simple: donate 25% of all proceeds to a charity of the customer's choice. As we got deeper into it, we saw firsthand how much waste the process created," Wagner shares with PEOPLE.
This led them to shift their practice toward "reworking pre-worn garments sourced from thrift and secondhand stores, also known as upcycling."
"Samaritan built somewhat of a cult following on campus, but after we graduated and moved away from each other, the brand came to an end," Wagner says. "Still, the passion for upcycling never left me."
Soon after, he began making and sharing garments onInstagram, which started as "just a creative outlet and a way to find community."
Then, last year, Wagner got the idea to make a jacket out of old painters' drop cloths after seeing a Facebook Marketplace listing for hundreds of pounds of used cloth.
"I met up with a nice gentleman named Jim and bought a few. I decided to make a video about the jacket, and it went viral," Wagner says. "Suddenly, hundreds of people wanted a painter's jacket. Others began asking if I could use their personal drop cloths to make something for them."
That was when he realized a gap in the market, one that could be filled by reworking people's old clothes or fabrics into new designs.
"That's when I realized how many people could benefit from a service like this. Around the same time, people also started reaching out about transforming old family tablecloths and loved ones' clothing into something new," Wagner shares.
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This is how Wagner connected with a man named Eric, who had a collection of clothes from his late mom and was hoping to repurpose them into "something he could wear." When Eric asked Wagner if he had any ideas about what to make with the worn pieces, at first, he admittedly "wasn't sure."
"But after talking with my grandmother, a lifelong quilter, I had the idea to piece the garments together and line a jacket with them," Wagner shares.
While Eric's mother lived in Ohio her whole life, she loved the beach, so Wagner chose "an outer fabric that resembled water."
Still, the process "was much more complicated" than he expected.
He shares that it took "nearly 10 hours" to work with the different fabrics, textures, weights and styles, but the result was "better than I could have imagined."
Wagner posted the results to his TikTok page, and thevideowent viral, amassing over 460,000 views and leaving thousands of commenters overcome with emotion.
"Beautiful!!! Eric's mother will hug him every time he wears this jacket. Nice work!" one person commented, as another added, "I'm sobbing this is beautiful."
"That video really took off. Instead of just requests for painter's jackets, I began receiving hundreds of stories from people online, stories of joy, loss and everything in between," Wagner shares.
The designer admits that "it caught me off guard at first."
"But the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. Ever since I started making clothing, I've wanted to honor God by using my talents to build something with purpose," he shares. "My journey from philanthropy to sustainability to storytelling has shown me that clothing isn't valuable just because of how it looks or how it's made; it is the story it carries and the way it makes you feel when you wear it."
He says that "it's been a privilege" to "honor so many meaningful stories over the past year, and I'm excited to continue telling more in the future."
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