There鈥檚 a particular kind of actor who feels equally at home in the wilderness and on the red carpet, who understands that the demands of the body and the demands of the spirit are not separate things. Joel Edgerton is that actor鈥攕omeone who grew up on the edge of a vast forest in Australia, who ice plunges in London’s Hampstead Heath, who collects vintage military boots and speaks about the woods with genuine reverence. He is, in other words, someone who has never quite left the wild places that made him.

Over two decades, Edgerton has built a career of quiet virtuosity, the kind that doesn’t announce itself but accumulates like sediment: directing The Gift, a gem of a subversive psychological thriller; both producing and starring in award contenders like Loving and Boy Erased; and managing to steal the scene no matter how small or large the role, from Warrior to The Great Gatsby. He’s become that rare figure in contemporary cinema: an actor-director-producer whose work consistently operates at the intersection of craft and conscience. You get the sense that he’s always seeking the human truth.

In his latest project, that is streaming now, Edgerton plays Robert Grainier, a logger and railroad worker whose life unfolds across six decades in the forests of the Pacific Northwest. Based on Denis Johnson’s luminous novella, the film follows Grainier from the turn of the 20th century through the 1960s as he witnesses America transform around him鈥攔ailroads replacing horse trails, the wilderness giving way to civilization, his simple way of life becoming a relic. It’s a role that demands something rare: the ability to convey profound emotional depth through stillness, through the language of the body and the land itself.

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IT’S OKTOBERFEST NYC聽and I鈥檓 standing with Kim Planert, a UPS driver from Ohio. We鈥檙e at Rumsey Playfield in Central Park, beneath London plane trees and a cerulean September sky. All around us is the requisite pageantry of the world鈥檚 foremost beer bacchanal: lederhosen bros, immodest dirndl cleavage, and polka music inspersed with domestic Oktoberfest classics like versions of 鈥淐ountry Roads鈥� and 鈥淪weet Caroline.鈥� I know some haters who dismiss Oktoberfest as cosplay for alcoholics, but for those of us with a soft spot for a little seasonal kitsch there are worse ways to ring in the fall.

Planert is 71 years old and his costume is relatively understated compared to some of the more committed revelers in the crowd: checkered blue-and-white Tyrolean hat, oversized Hofbr盲u聽 T-shirt, and cargo shorts. But Planert is not here just to binge on lager and wurst. For the fourth year in a row, he is competing in the Hofbr盲u Masskrugstemmen National Competition, which is about to take place on Rumsey鈥檚 concert stage. Masskrugstemmen is the German name for the increasingly popular sport of steinholding鈥攚here participants try to hold a five-pound glass of beer at arm鈥檚 length for as long as they can.

鈥淚鈥檝e actually added two minutes to my time,鈥� Planert tells me. 鈥淚鈥檝e done 14 minutes.鈥� Not too long ago, such a performance would have put him in contention for a national record. But the bar has been raised in recent years. 鈥淲e鈥檝e got guys now that can do 16, 17, 19, 20-plus minutes,鈥� Planert says wistfully.

This upping of the ante is at least partially due to the marketing savvy of the Munich-based brewery Hofbr盲uhaus, as well as American beer brands like Sam Adams, who have been sponsoring steinholding events for years. (There are now .) The 19 men and 13 women who are taking part in the 2025 Hofbr盲u nationals have all prevailed in regional Hofbr盲u-affiliated competitions across the country. As a reward, they were flown out to New York for a chance to compete for the title of national champion. The annual winner in Central Park gets a paid trip to the OG Oktoberfest in Munich, as well as a blinged-out championship belt to commemorate the achievement. Let no one tell you America is no longer the land of opportunity.

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In late October, a group of staffers at Yosemite National Park stopped by a maintenance building within the park to visit some of their coworkers. They brought stir-fried chicken thighs, pumpkin soup, and home-made pumpkin spice muffins. This was a few days after they had delivered lasagna to Yosemite鈥檚 law enforcement building, and chicken masala to maintenance staff.

An NPS worker, who we will call Robert, told 国产吃瓜黑料 that the recipients of the hot meals were surprised and grateful. While many of Yosemite鈥檚 employees have been furloughed amid the federal shutdown, some jobs like law enforcement and maintenance staff are still working their usual shifts.

鈥淭he food isn鈥檛 putting money into anyone鈥檚 account, but it鈥檚 a way to keep morale up and let people know we are in it together,鈥� Robert told 国产吃瓜黑料.

Much of the food, Robert said, was paid for by the National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE), a major labor union that represents government workers across multiple branches. Earlier this year, NPS workers at both Yosemite and Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Parks voted to join the union. Now, NFFE is helping those workers get hot meals. The union is also informing workers about when they might get paid and how to preserve their employment rights, even as the White House declares its intention to fire more park service workers.

Throughout September and October, 国产吃瓜黑料 spoke to five sources at the National Park Service (NPS) about unionization efforts within the agency. 国产吃瓜黑料 granted these sources anonymity, as the NPS has forbidden its employees from speaking directly to journalists.

国产吃瓜黑料 also reached out to the National Park Service for comment on the unionization efforts at some parks. We received a bounceback from the main NPS media page: 鈥淒ue to the lapse in appropriations, I am out of the office and not authorized to work during this time. I will respond to your messages when I return.鈥�

When Robert and the more than 600 workers at three California NPS sites voted to unionize in August, they joined thousands of other federal workers being represented by some nine separate unions. Now, more than 40 different NPS units鈥攔anging from Saguaro National Park in Arizona, to the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina, to Gettysburg National Military Park in Pennsylvania鈥攁re unionized. Union reps told 国产吃瓜黑料 that as many as 100 other national park units are preparing to follow their lead.

This labor movement is being put to the test by the Trump administration鈥檚 cuts and rollbacks. Even before the government shutdown thinned the ranks of working national park staff, the White House had bled the park service of a through layoffs and buyouts. The administration has also canceled the collective bargaining agreements that unions had forged with multiple federal agencies. It鈥檚 an assault on organized labor that legal scholars call unprecedented, and will put the unions鈥� organizing efforts to the true test.

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Budimir 艩obat had been lying face down in a swimming pool for around a quarter of an hour on March 27, 2021, when something strange happened: he fell asleep.

艩obat, a 56-year-old professional freediver from Zagreb, Croatia, was aiming to break the world record for the longest breath ever held. He guessed he was approaching 17 minutes鈥攔oughly the point at which the body’s third, final, and most painful stage of oxygen deprivation began, when carbon dioxide would fill the body and the diaphragm would spasm violently, like a thunder sheet.

This approaching wall of agony might understandably have stressed out 艩obat. But he had spent six years training his mind for this exact moment, developing the ability to enter a quasi-sleep state to conserve as much energy-sapping thought as possible.

艩obat wasn’t supposed to relax enough to actually drift off, though. Moments later, a bubble floated from his now-open mouth and brushed his eye, jogging him awake.

This isn’t good, he thought. For 30 minutes before the attempt, 艩obat had filled his lungs with bottled pure oxygen. That meant he could go 20 or more minutes on a single breath, a near-magical feat. But it also raised the danger of blacking out, which could set off a deadly chemical chain reaction, toxifying the oxygen and destroying blood vessels, his lungs, or even his brain.

艩obat slammed his mouth shut. He assumed the worst. He saw his life flash by in a heartbeat.

Then he opened his eyes. He wasn’t dead. But he hadn’t dreamed the experience, either. He’d slept, and now he was stressed. Stress meant an increased heart rate, and a high heart rate meant certain failure.

艩obat repeated a silent mantra: don’t panic, don’t panic, it’s OK, it’s OK. His heart rate fell, and he felt the pre-agreed-upon tap of his coach’s finger on his back: 17 minutes. Fuck, he thought. I’m still here. It’s not a blackout.

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This story was produced in partnership with , an independent, nonprofit news organization.

The post What鈥檚 the Trump Administration鈥檚 End Game for the National Parks? I Saw It in Yosemite. appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

This story was produced in partnership with , an independent, nonprofit news organization.

It鈥檚 a perfect fall afternoon in Colorado鈥檚 Rocky Mountain National Park and I am on a guided hike alongside 15 strangers just a few miles beyond the park鈥檚 eastern entrance. As we click away with our iPhone cameras, our leader, a bearded 32-year-old named Adam Auerbach, regales us with the park鈥檚 history: In 1915, President Woodrow Wilson officially created it with the stroke of his pen. Lobbyists from mining and logging companies urged the federal government to rethink the decision, Auerbach says, setting up a century-long fight between the park and the extraction industry.

鈥淧eople need to realize that the fight to protect places like this doesn’t end with the founding of a national park,鈥� Auerbach says. 鈥淭he fight will always be there, and every generation will have to fight.鈥�

This hike, Auerbach tells us, is his way of continuing the battle. Since June 2025, he has led a series of what he calls 鈥渁dvocacy hikes鈥� for anyone who wants to show up. During the outings, which he promotes on social media, Auerbach discusses the Trump Administration鈥檚 staffing and budget cuts to the National Park Service (NPS) and other public lands agencies, and how those cuts are impacting Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP) and the people who work there.

Auerbach worked as a seasonal ranger at RMNP from 2016 until 2019, and his social circle includes full-time NPS rangers who still work in the park. But these staffers have been strictly forbidden from speaking publicly about the cuts. The administration has posted so-called 鈥溾�� at NPS sites, urging the public to blow the whistle on rangers who are critical about the administration, the NPS, and even U.S. history.

Amid this information crackdown, Auerbach has become a rare leak. Nobody from the RMNP has told Auerbach to stop these hikes, or to apply for a permit, he tells me. He shares details about the cuts, as well as the feelings of rangers, with anyone who will listen. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 envy my former colleagues,鈥� Auerbach says. 鈥淔or them, it鈥檚 a management of risk tolerance. They know they can lose their jobs if they are too outspoken.鈥�

Among our group are several students from the University of Colorado鈥檚 Masters of the Environment graduate program鈥擜uerbach is a recent grad, and he is now working with a public lands advocacy group called Next Interior. There are also a handful of out-of-state hikers who saw the message online and were intrigued. The rest are locals from Boulder, Fort Collins, and the surrounding areas who, like me, wanted to learn more about the shutdown and its impact on RMNP.

In the weeks after the cuts, additional rangers took buyouts or retired. A federal hiring freeze prevented the NPS from replacing the open positions, leaving between 30 and 40 unfilled full-time jobs at RMNP. The park employs approximately 150 full-time rangers throughout the year, a former RMNP official told me, and it’s staff increases to about 350 in the summer with the addition of seasonal and part-time workers. Auerbach shares anecdotes of park employees having to work two or three different positions in addition to their specialty job. 鈥淚f you lose that much staff, you have to divert people to those positions,鈥� he says. 鈥淭here鈥檚 this veneer that parks are still operating and doing well after the cuts. They aren鈥檛.鈥�

And Auerbach shares his gravest concern for RMNP amid the staffing cuts. While daily life inside the park may appear hunky dory to visitors, the NPS鈥檚 intense focus on superficial tasks like toilets and trash may leave it vulnerable to more existential threats: climate change, wildfire, and invasive plants and animals. 鈥淢y fear is that Rocky will stumble through a year or two and still appear functional,鈥� he says. 鈥淏ut it鈥檚 going to fail in its mission of protecting its natural wonders for future generations.鈥�

Auerbach鈥檚 fears became heightened in early October when the federal government shut down. The Interior Department ordered all NPS sites to remain open, even as the overwhelming majority of full and part-time staff were either furloughed or let go. During previous shutdowns, national park sites have endured a long list of environmental harm: overflowing trash cans, damaged conservation sites, hikers venturing way off trail.

This cut was severe enough to impact even the communications team with the park. When 国产吃瓜黑料 and RE:PUBLIC reached out to the NPS to comment on this story, we initially received a bounce-back email.

鈥淒ue to the lapse in appropriations, I am out of the office and not authorized to work during this time,鈥� read the message. 鈥淚 will respond to your messages when I return.鈥�

The NPS eventually responded to 国产吃瓜黑料 and 搁贰:笔鲍叠尝滨颁听for the story.

鈥淩ocky Mountain National Park remains committed to protecting park resources and supporting employees,” a NPS spokesperson said. “Park leadership has encouraged open communication and use of available employee assistance resources. The NPS values constructive feedback and does not tolerate retaliation for staff who raise workplace concerns through appropriate channels.”

But 国产吃瓜黑料 spoke to full-time employees at RMNP and other sources for this story, and the information and perspective shared with 国产吃瓜黑料 and RE:PUBLIC not only supported Auerbach鈥檚 opinions, but presented a stark picture of life inside the park.

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This story was produced in partnership with , an independent, nonprofit news organization.

The Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail forms a 5.5-mile loop through dense hardwoods, hugging the mountain slopes like a stretch of bench-cut singletrack for cars. Massive trees rise from the edge of the narrow one-lane blacktop, and waterfalls are scattered throughout the forest. It would be a transcendent cruise if it weren鈥檛 for all the minivans, safari-style Jeeps, and side-by-side ATVs clogging the road.

I was on the Roaring Fork on Labor Day weekend, one of the most visited weekends in Great Smoky Mountains National Park (GSMNP), the 500,000-acre swath of mountains and historic farmland straddling the border of North Carolina and Tennessee. GSMNP is by far the busiest national park in the country, attracting in 2024鈥攁lmost 8 million more than the runner-up, Zion. Those visitors spent more than like Gatlinburg, Cherokee, and Pigeon Forge.

During my visit, it seemed like most of those people were on the road ahead of me. But that鈥檚 why I was there: to see how a nationwide staff crisis was impacting America鈥檚 most popular national park.

Even before the White House furloughed 9,300 National Park Service staffers during , this year has been a brutal one for the agency. By August it had lost 4,055 permanent employees, nearly a quarter of its full-time staff. On October 20, the Department of the Interior revealed in court documents that it intended to abolish 2,050 more positions, including at least 272 in the park service.

But hard data from specific parks has been hard to come by. The questions I sent to Great Smoky Mountains鈥� acting superintendent, Charles Sellars, were politely passed on to the national communications office in Washington, D.C., which declined to comment on personnel matters. , a nonprofit that works on behalf of park employees, estimated that 12 of the park鈥檚 274 full-time employees were let go after the initial wave of layoffs in February, but the group hasn鈥檛 been able to update those numbers since.

鈥淧ark Service employees aren鈥檛 talking with us right now, because they鈥檙e fearful of termination,鈥� says Bill Wade, the group鈥檚 executive director. 鈥淚nformation stopped flowing. They鈥檙e hunkering down and unwilling to speak about anything at all that鈥檚 going on inside the parks.鈥�

Kristen Brengel, the senior vice president of government affairs for the , echoes that sentiment. 鈥淭here has been a steady rate of attrition at parks across the country, but the park service is withholding all of this information from us and the media, so we can鈥檛 get firm numbers for specific parks.鈥�

One thing we do know: Great Smoky Mountains National Park is unique because of the sheer volume of visitors. The Smokies see more people in a single month than many park units see in an entire year. Last October alone, 1.5 million people visited the park, after a million in September and another 1.5 million in August.

鈥淭welve million people a year is a lot of flushing toilets and a lot of feet on the trails,鈥� says Dana Soehn, president of , the nonprofit partner that provides operational funds for the park. 鈥淭he needs and challenges are many.鈥�

I wanted to see how the park was handling it. I live about an hour from Great Smokies, and I鈥檝e been exploring this landscape for more than 20 years鈥攕o I know places where you鈥檙e guaranteed to see a crowd. Cades Cove Loop Road, an 11-mile loop road through a pastoral valley, is famous for its traffic jams. Two million people a year ascend to the park鈥檚 highest point, 6,643-foot Kuwohi (formerly Clingmans Dome), where a concrete lookout tower offers 360-degree views. About the same number cruise the Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail. These are the spots I usually avoid, but on this trip, I wanted to go where the tourists were going and see what they were seeing.

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When I located Carl Cocchiarella on a hillside at 10,500 feet, after hiking for hours toward a blue dot on my phone, he was eating lunch in the shade of a large spruce, blended with the terrain like the savvy hunter he is. His $2,000 compound bow rested in the dirt. He chomped into a flour tortilla slathered in peanut butter while reclined next to his hunting partner, Teig Olson.

I would give you a rough idea of where we were, except Carl insisted I refer to the location only as 鈥渢he high country of Colorado.鈥� He explained why: 鈥淗unters are territorial, and they have guns.鈥� So did he: a Glock strapped to his hip, in case a large predator tried to move in on his kill. The prospect of him killing something, however, constituted a mighty if, considering this was Carl鈥檚 40th year as an archery hunter and he had never harvested an animal with an arrow.

It was early September 2024, the second day of Colorado鈥檚 bow season. Carl, a 65-year-old house painter from Vail, held elk and deer tags good for both sexes but so far had not seen any animals. The sun鈥檚 heat felt like it does in July. Carl had dark, greasy smudges on his cheeks to avoid detection by his targets, and was dressed in a camouflage long-sleeve hoodie and beige pants. He would have been nearly impossible to spot if not for his 75-liter azure backpack, which could only be camouflaged in an ocean.

Carl started hunting, with a rifle, in 1983, drawn by the idea of filling his freezer with meat. He harvested a large buck his first day out, downvalley from Vail. Then he got a bow and never went back to bullets. He still owns a very nice rifle and knows it would improve his chances. But harvesting on its own is no longer worth the concessions in style and pride鈥攁nd hasn鈥檛 been for decades.

Teig, a local electrician 24 years younger than Carl, has no problem making such concessions, even if his heart, like Carl鈥檚, belongs to his bow. Resting in the shade, Teig was camouflaged from his ballcap鈥攁 brown flat-brim that read 鈥淓lk Hunter鈥濃�攖o his boots, all 6 feet and 3 inches of him. He spoke only in whispers.

Sometimes Carl and Teig hunt with other people, but mostly they go with each other. Their relationship skews toward mentor-mentee鈥擟arl the self-deprecating sage, Teig the highly skilled understudy鈥攐wing to Carl鈥檚 experience in the mountains more than their respective hunting records. Quietly through the years, Carl had built an impressive list of conquests: he skied the Messner Couloir on Denali, riding out three nights in an ice cave at 17,000 feet; climbed the east ridge of Mount Logan, North America鈥檚 second tallest point, during a blizzard; made a first descent in Patagonia; summited three peaks in a season in Peru鈥檚 Cordillera Blanca; and kayaked the Grand Canyon.

He also survived a full avalanche burial on Vail Pass before transceivers were widely used; a thunderous slab in British Columbia that nearly washed him over a cliff鈥攕aved by a sapling that he grabbed at the last second; and a crevasse fall on Mont Blanc that left him dangling above death.

鈥淐arl gets a lot of good days because he鈥檚 not afraid of the bad days,鈥� says Scott Toepfer, a retired avalanche forecaster and one of his closest friends, summing up Carl鈥檚 approach to adventure.

Teig, meanwhile, grew up in the Vail Valley and started hunting as a grommet, following his dad through the forest with a rubber-band gun. He killed his first elk with a rifle when he was 12. As soon as he tried bow hunting, he says, 鈥淚 caught the fever.鈥� He found its intimacy鈥攎ost shots are taken within 40 yards鈥斺�渁ddicting. You only get one chance.鈥�

Over 16 seasons as an archery hunter heading into 2024, Teig had harvested four elk, including a 600-pound bull that fed his family for two years. That success rate was about two and a half times the 2023 average, which hovers around ten percent in Colorado and serves as one of the discipline鈥檚 chief deterrents. Teig鈥檚 father never got into bow hunting. 鈥淗e鈥檇 say, 鈥楴o, I鈥檓 not a vegetarian,鈥欌�� Teig recalls.

I had backcountry skied with Carl for years and often heard stories about his hunts, tinged with hints of hilarity. I also knew he avoided attention; allowing a reporter into his fold went against his ideology. He agreed to let me chronicle his season reluctantly.

More than simply accompanying him through the forest, I was here to see how Carl, a proud outdoorsman, self-made and successful, had lasted four decades in a sport built on results. How did he maintain his passion in the face of so much failure? And what life lessons might be buried within his futility?

Just downhill from their lunch spot, Carl and Teig made a plan in hushed tones that would take them back to camp by sunset. 鈥淚鈥檓 gonna go slow,鈥� Carl said. 鈥淚 might sit down.鈥� 鈥淭hat鈥檚 fine, Carl,鈥� Teig replied. Carl smiled. They fist bumped and tiptoed in opposite directions.

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I鈥檓 sort of praying as I鈥檓 strapped inside a helicopter attempting a one-skid landing in a boulder field above treeline on Mount of the Holy Cross, the northernmost and most famous of the 15 fourteeners in central Colorado鈥檚 Sawatch range.

Jesus H. Christ, Randy, park this thing!

At the stick in the cockpit鈥檚 left seat is Randy Oates, a Helitack pilot rocking a ZZ Top beard in a flight helmet and Nomex coveralls. God, I trust, occupies the empty right-hand seat of the cockpit. Belted in on my left elbow is Jolen Anya Minetz, a fortysomething forensic anthropologist who specializes in human bone identification. Anya, also a professional snowboard instructor, must be reliving the summer she spent in Montana as a wildland firefighter with the Lolo Hotshots. Because, unlike me, she鈥檚 grinning ear-to-ear as Randy waves off and spurs 1,400 fire-breathing horses screaming from the turbine engine, sending the helicopter soaring up a 1,000-foot granite wall for another landing attempt. Sitting on the yawing deck between my knees is a black Lab named Stryker, a beauty of a scent detection beast I acquired during the pandemic. He comes from a Connecticut breeder known for producing lines of legendary cadaver dogs for FEMA and other agencies. Sweet Stryker鈥檚 gazing up at me, eyes wide with concern yet brimming with trust as if saying, 鈥淭his not fun. When we have fun, Boss?鈥�

Soon, buddy. Soon.

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Nicole McLaughlin believes anything can become a shoe.

Upcycled Patagonia fleeces work well if you’re making a slipper鈥攂ut so do tennis balls, badminton birdies, crossword puzzle booklets, balloons, golf visors, and packing peanuts. An egg carton makes an excellent sandal, and the baffles of a beach ball can quickly become a striking rainbow clog.

But why limit yourself to shoes when you can also make pants from napkins or backpacks, and bras from lemon squeezers or croissants? McLaughlin, a fashion designer, artist, and gorpcore icon based in Boulder, Colorado, has made a jacket from oven mitts鈥攁nd an oven mitt from a loaf of bread. She’s turned cereal bags (still filled with Froot Loops and corn flakes) into a vest and sewn a puffy jacket from bubble wrap. Each of her garments is quirky and evocative鈥攁nd has the power to chip away at the very foundations of the outdoor gear world.

Like any arm of the fashion universe, outdoor gear is a high-production, high-expense, high-waste kind of industry. Some brands are trying to change that, but the process has been slow and cumbersome. McLaughlin’s designs, however, cut through all the marketing chatter and straight to the core of the issue: they point out, loudly, that there’s no excuse for waste. Old or even damaged gear doesn’t have to be discarded. Instead, it can live on indefinitely through upcycling.

Upcycling is part craft, part raw imagination. It’s the practice of refurbishing an old item until it’s once again chic and useful. Over the last few years, the upcycling movement has gone mainstream鈥攁nd some of the world’s biggest companies are catching on.

Today, the 32-year-old McLaughlin has worked with brands ranging from Coach and Herm猫s to Merrell and Hoka. She’s been featured in Forbes’s Thirty Under Thirty, and is a sought-after speaker and workshop instructor. But her biggest achievement is the cultural change she’s helped affect: through her witty, tongue-in-cheek designs, she’s helped turn upcycling from a stodgy homeschoolers’ craft into an edgy and provocative response to consumerism at large.

Given McLaughlin’s r茅sum茅, I expected her to be sophisticated and reserved, in an out-of-touch, artsy sort of way. But what I found when I visited her in Boulder was an unassuming woman in plain clothing, bright-eyed and warm and ready with a smile. When she opened the door to her studio鈥攁 small warehouse space off a dirt road鈥攕he was dressed in baggy jeans and gingham sneakers, and her gray hoodie sported a fuzzy zipper charm in the shape of a cartoon character. She played with it while she talked, her fingers turning the little character this way and that.

“Come on in,” she said. “Did you have trouble finding it?” The studio is in Niwot, a one-street rural outpost well northeast of Boulder proper. So yes, I did. In fact, I’d been lost for ten full minutes before knocking on the weathered door. But I lied. And then, between spurts of showing me around the studio, McLaughlin told me about her life.

Sometimes, when you’re a young person trying to choose a career, an adult will give you this guidance: “Do the thing that would make your eight-year-old self proud.” It’s good advice鈥攖hough often impractical for those of us who dreamed of becoming race-car drivers or astronauts. Few people are able to truly self-actualize in this way. But McLaughlin, somehow, has.

Growing up, McLaughlin was an artsy kid, the daughter of a New Jersey carpenter and an interior designer. She was also a dedicated member of the early 2000s skate scene. A fan of hardcore punk music, she had an anti-authoritarian attitude toward homework, and an obsession with chunky skate shoes that would later become a hallmark of her upcycling style. Eventually, McLaughlin wandered into a four-year graphic design program at East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania. Then, after graduation, things started to get interesting.

For three years, McLaughlin lived a double life. She was just out of college and trying to prove herself at Reebok’s Massachusetts corporate office, where she’d gotten a gig as a graphic designer. During the day, she’d work long hours, shadowing other employees, placing logos, and sometimes sleeping on the office floor. During nights and weekends, she was mostly alone. Making friends in a new city takes time; McLaughlin was too focused on her career for that. But after a while, she began to realize that placing logos wasn’t exactly keeping her creative mind occupied. She felt stuck. She was approaching creative stagnation.

Then, one night, she snuck into Reebok’s recently vacated offices. There, she discovered mounds of discarded samples and fabric swatches鈥攂oxes upon boxes of really expensive trash. She filled a bag, thinking the pieces could be good inspiration for her side projects.

Soon, she was taking her pilfered samples apart, tearing out stitching and prying apart shoes on her bedroom floor. She’d mix and match soles and glue on new pull tabs, straps, and toggles. Held together by adhesive and pins, none of it was wearable; the only goal was to make something that looked cool. Eventually, she started posting photos of her designs on Instagram, a nerve-wracking experience. One鈥攁 blue sandal made from the straps of an Ikea tote鈥攔acked up several thousand views. For a burgeoning artist with zero product-design experience, it was a major confidence boost.

After some experimentation, McLaughlin gravitated toward vintage sports equipment. There was something playful about the nostalgia of it, and the absurdity of crafting a shoe from a lacrosse stick or basketball. In 2016 she picked up rock climbing, and two years later began tinkering with chalk bags and harnesses. She saw limitless design potential in outdoor gear.

McLaughlin churned out dozens of innovative upcycled designs, one after another, on Instagram. It was a private thing鈥攂edroom projects furtively shared on a faceless page. Her bosses at Reebok had no idea she was doing it. Until one meeting in 2019.

McLaughlin was sitting in a conference room, surrounded by colleagues, kicked back in a chair, twirling a pen in her hands. It was supposed to be a routine meeting with a marketing agency, which gave Reebok ideas for upcoming campaigns and collabs. But this time, photos of McLaughlin’s Instagram creations popped up on the projector screen. McLaughlin blinked. What?

Her colleagues started glancing across the room. “Is that you?” They mouthed as the agency rambled.

“You should collaborate with this girl,” the presenter ultimately suggested. “She’s coming up with some cool ideas.” McLaughlin kept her mouth shut during the meeting but later admitted to her bosses that she was the one behind the designs.

McLaughlin was still a junior employee, so she wasn’t surprised when Reebok didn’t jump at the opportunity to fund her weird, experimental art. But the company did send her to a three-month-long program at Adidas’s Brooklyn maker space, a wonderland of sewing machines and free materials called the Creator Farm. There, McLaughlin learned how to sew and make shoes from scratch. Meanwhile, her Instagram following continued to grow, and other brands emailed her project inquiries鈥攁 video series with Depop about her work, for example, and an opportunity to teach an upcycling workshop with footwear retail giant Foot Locker. That was all the nudge she needed. In 2019, McLaughlin quit her cushy corporate Reebok job鈥攖o the chagrin of her parents鈥攁nd went full-time freelance.

“I still worry that it’s all going to stop,” she says. “Like this is a phase I’m just riding out, and one day the work is all going to disappear. But it’s funny, because I’ve been doing this full-time for six years, and it hasn’t stopped yet.”

It’s easy to see why McLaughlin and other upcycling designers have gained prominence. Designing and manufacturing apparel and footwear creates a ton of waste. That goes for fast fashion, of course. But it also goes for the outdoor industry.

Outdoor gear may appear rugged and practical, but the industry that produces and markets it is yoked to traditional fashion cycles. Yes, people want equipment that performs, but they also want to look on-trend. Most brands cash in on the appeal of new fashions by constantly changing designs and churning out new colors and cuts each season.

What’s the point of saving humanity if we can’t have a little fun in the meantime?

Creating those new styles generates lots of waste. For example: before a sneaker or hiking shoe goes to market, the factory will send a brand three or four prototypes鈥攗nwearable single shoes that get examined by the product designers, and are then thrown into the trash. Fabric swatches are much the same. It all piles up.

The constant change of seasonal colors and styles speeds up the turnover of product styles. According to a 2018 report from the EPA, American retail stores and consumers throw out about 13 million tons of clothing and footwear every year. The expense is ghastly. The waste is obscene.

Few of us are immune to this materialistic ethos. Have you ever tossed out a rain shell instead of re-waterproofing it? Gotten a new chalk bag solely because it had a cute pattern? Shelled out for a name-brand fleece with cool colorblocking, even though you’ve already got a serviceable midlayer? I know I have.

Through her work, McLaughlin forces consumers to question the outdoor industry’s process. And people are catching on. Upcycling is having a moment, and its ethos appears to have struck a chord with Gen Z consumers.

Gen Z faces more pressure from climate change鈥攁nd climate anxiety鈥攖han any generation ever. Add to that post-inflation prices and a tough job market, and DIY starts to look mighty appealing, both as a cost-saving hobby and as a revolutionary movement.

Upcycling has also amplified new voices. For decades, brands have been the arbiters and gatekeepers of style. Now, a far more grassroots group of tastemakers is rewriting the rules and deciding for themselves what gets to be considered high fashion鈥攁nd what gets dismissed as trash.

McLaughlin is one of the most prominent, but there are others. Anna Molinari, a 27-year-old designer based in New York City, makes skirts from plastic bags and decorative chain mail from soda can tabs. Rivers McCall, 23, crafts handbags and even cocktail dresses from old climbing rope. Both artists have dressed Wyn Wiley, the drag queen and environmental activist better known as Pattie Gonia. The partnerships have put cutting-edge upcycled designs in front of millions of viewers.

Upcycling鈥攁nd its close siblings, thrifting and DIY鈥攚eren’t always cool. When my parents were young, new products were synonymous with wealth and importance. Old clothes meant you were a charity case. But over the last few decades, that’s begun to change. In fact, buying new will now earn you serious backlash in some corners of the internet.

“Social media has normalized second-hand shopping to the extent that there’s this sentiment of judgment if you buy a new designer bag,” says Molinari. She doesn’t necessarily disagree. “No one needs to buy new clothes. Buying new is so unnecessary, and watching the environment decline so quickly is terrifying,” she says. “I think everybody needs to take this seriously.”

Social media isn’t just a way to spread the zero-waste gospel. It has also allowed new generations to learn the timeless arts of sewing and repair.

I, for example, learned to sew from my mother, who hand-made my dresses in grade school. She learned from her mother, who learned from her grandma鈥攖he fearsome Ma Stalvey, who lived on a farm in southern Georgia, wringing the necks of chickens, cooking cornbread, and churning out shirts and nighties for her ten children out of the fabric flour sacks the grocery truck brought once a week. If it weren’t for those women, I’d never have picked up a needle. I don’t know that I ever would have wanted to; sewing always felt like a thing grown-ups did on school nights with the middle-aged mending circle at the local JoAnn’s. The act of sewing wasn’t aesthetic. It wasn’t edgy. And it certainly wasn’t cool.

But now, somehow, it is. According to Claudia E. Henninger, a fashion researcher and professor at the University of Manchester, the pandemic accelerated an interest in crafting. Gen Z ran with it.

“Social media has been massive,” Henninger says. “People can suddenly see other people knitting or crocheting or being creative. If that person can do it, then I can do it, as well.”

TikTok quickly emerged as a massive repository of sewing and crafting inspiration, and DIY tutorials and process videos exploded on Instagram. Entire crafting communities emerged. These days, if you upcycle, you’re not just a quirky teenager tinkering in your bedroom. You’re a part of something big.

That extends to the community of outdoor enthusiasts. Secondhand gear shops are popping up across the country. And outdoor brands are increasingly offering take-back programs, upcycling workshops, and repair services. Those that already have them are seeing major gains. Take Patagonia, which has offered repairs since the seventies. Its current pre-owned gear program, called Worn Wear, launched in 2012. The brand has seen more Gen-Z customers flocking to Worn Wear鈥攏ot to mention massive viewership of its DIY repair videos on YouTube. Since 2018, The North Face, Arc’teryx, and REI (which has re-sold used gear for more than 60 years) have all launched or expanded existing used gear resale programs, as have more mainstream brands like Carhartt, Lululemon, and even Juicy Couture.

“I think it’s starting to become more culturally accepted,” Henninger says. Molinari sees long lines of customers outside of curated thrift stores in New York City on most weekends. “There’s the virality of videos about vintage clothing hauls,” she says. In the UK, Henninger often walks by protest sewing pop-ups: people set up in front of high street retailers and sew their own clothes, informing curious passersby that they don’t have to shop at big-name fashion houses to look good.

“That’s very powerful,” Henninger says. Nicole Bassett, a textile recycling expert and the co-founder of The Renewal Workshop, believes the upcycling movement could someday have a huge impact on the fashion industry. Over time, it could slow style turnover, undermine brands’ bottom lines, and finally force big companies to rewire their supply chains.

“We’re not on the precipice yet鈥攚e’re in the beginning of a very big change in our economics in general,” says Bassett.

Pockets are a common theme鈥擬cLaughlin’s way of giving the finger to the lack of functionality that’s historically plagued women’s clothing.

As with any revolution, this movement faces hurdles. Young people don’t always have the purchasing power to pass over items with lower price tags鈥攅ven if those products are less sustainable. But customer behavior indicates that Gen Z and Millennial shoppers are moving toward products that are environmentally conscious.

“Sustainability can be a very boring topic. And climate is honestly a boring, dry thing,” says Wyn Wiley, the person behind the Pattie Gonia persona. “But now there’s all this creativity and interest from Gen Z. They’re under more pressure than ever鈥攂ut they’re also getting more creative than ever.”

As for McLaughlin? Sustainability wasn’t top of mind when she first started upcycling; she was initially attracted to samples and off-cuts only because they were free fodder for low-stakes experiments.

“When I started doing this work, I didn’t even know what upcycling was. Then, during COVID, brands started cleaning out their offices and realizing just how much stuff they had. That’s when they started reaching out to me for help,” McLaughlin says. At first that gave her pause. She was at a turning point in her career, and wanted to make sure the brands she worked with weren’t just doing sustainability as a shtick.

“But then I realized, I don’t work for the brands,” she says. “I work for the people who buy from those brands. Brands make all this stuff, and the responsibility falls on the consumer to figure out how to discard an item or recycle it.” Most of the time, there’s nowhere for that stuff to go. Most gear isn’t recyclable. Thrift stores are overwhelmed. We all have too much stuff in our houses. Waste is a serious issue.

Since 2021, McLaughlin has done consulting work with big brands about how they can limit waste and creatively reuse the scraps they already have. But she admits that her work sometimes feels like it’s just making a dent in the enormous problem created by fashion’s waste.

“I think there are days that are easy and exciting, and I feel really good about everything and like I can figure it all out,” she says. “But there are a lot of other days where it’s more like, ‘Oh my god, how did we get here? What are we doing? How am I helping to contribute to this?'”

McLaughlin escapes her worries by rock climbing鈥攕he finds the creative problem-solving on the wall helps complement her problem-solving in the studio. She also finds that the full-body movement helps her think. Her other tool is humor.

“There are so many hard conversations surrounding sustainability,” she says. “I want my work to be a moment of levity.” Often, that means leaning into the absurd.

“Making a bra out of lemon squeezers is funny. Putting pockets on a shoe is funny,” she says. “Most of the time, when I talk with brands about their process or what they could do to reduce waste, they’ve so overwhelmed. So when I’m designing, I want to make a statement, but I also want it to be fun.”

It’s a unique take on climate optimism. McLaughlin’s opinion is that, the more we lead with hope and humor, the more empowered we’ll be to take on the catastrophes facing our planet. What’s the point of saving humanity if we can’t have a little fun in the meantime?

“For me, upcycling is about being creative and using what you have. But it’s also about having fun,” she says. “I mean, that’s the root of upcycling: imagination and lightheartedness. That’s what keeps me going. And I think that’s what will get brands鈥攁nd the fashion industry鈥攅xcited about making change.”

5 Questions with Nicole McLaughlin

1. Your favorite material to work with is: Bread. Any time I work with food it’s always a really insane challenge of trying to figure out how to sew it, or construct it such that I can still take it apart and eat it after.

2. If the studio was burning down and you could grab one thing it would be: My grandfather’s squash trophy. He played until he was 80 years old and was a huge inspiration to me. When he passed away, all the kids in the family each took a trophy to remember him by.

3. The sports you played as a kid were: Tennis and basketball. And skateboarding.

4. You like to listen to: Podcasts and audiobooks while I’m working. I just flew through the whole Twilight series鈥擨’d never read them, and my sister told me I needed to. If I’m listening to music, usually it’s lo-fi beats and shoegaze.

5. Right now you’re reading: Start With Why by Simon Sinek. It’s been a good reminder to define my goals and purpose. Otherwise, it can be easy to lose sight of those things.

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