Why Restore
We came out of big tech. We helped build the machine that turns owners into subscribers, and we watched what it does up close: hardware glued shut so you can't repair it, software licensed so you can't leave it, feeds tuned so you can't look away from them. None of that is an accident. It's the business model.
RestoreMyIndependence is our working answer. Not a protest account, not a costume — a small independent operation in Los Angeles that makes things embodying the opposite set of values: if you buy it, you own it; if it breaks, you can open it; if you outgrow it, you can leave with your data and your dignity.
What we believe
The right to repair is not a niche hobby, it's the baseline of ownership. A device you cannot open is a device you are renting, whatever the receipt says. Upcycling beats landfill. Files should be downloadable, batteries replaceable, and the exit door clearly marked.
The design on our first shirt says it in two images: a flock circling on the front — the feed, everyone moving together, going nowhere — and on the back, a chain breaking, one bird out. The chain is the platform. The bird is the machine you can open, the file you can download, the thing you made yourself.
What we make
Clothing funds hardware. The first run — 50 numbered heavyweight tees — pays for the development of cyberdeck cases: a standardized 3D-printed chassis for Raspberry Pi-class computers, mounted inside upcycled shells like dead camcorders and retired instrument cases. Reliable inside, one-of-one outside. Sold as finished decks, as bare kits, and given away as free printable files — because if the files cost money, we've just built a prettier cage.
Everything gets documented in the build log, including the failures. The list of people funding it is public in the ledger.
What we're not
We're not anti-technology — we're against renting your own life back from it. We're not a survivalist brand, and this isn't fiction. It's a documented attempt to build a small independent alternative, funded one shirt at a time.