Today, fashion relies on linear “take, make, waste” models; often characterised by excessive overproduction, underutilisation, and poor disposal.
As outlined by the GFA Monitor, proceeding on the industry’s current linear path, resource flows will become less dependable, and large values will be destroyed.
Fashion brands are increasingly exploring circular fashion systems and initiating processes of redesigning the product life cycles. Yet complexities around the linear model have stagnated this transition. The topic of Circular economy has significantly grown on the fashion agenda globally, presenting benefits for both people and the planet as well as long-term resilience for fashion brands. Seeing said brands implementing these systems however, is still fairly unique.
To realise a world built on circular systems requires more than any one company, industry or government acting alone.
Featured in our Innovation Forum, these companies are paving the way for industry-wide transformation by promoting Circular Fashion Systems to ensure that the resources and value of garments are preserved:
Archive is a full service resale partner for brands that want to take ownership of their secondhand market in a way that’s authentic to their brand and customers. Archive’s platform enables brands to add resale to their ecommerce offering, allowing them to become more sustainable, increase loyalty amongst existing customers, and reach new customers. They are currently partnered with iconic brands such as Oscar De La Renta, The North Face, Marimekko, and more.
BIORESTORE is a garment care laundry Re-Tergent that renews, revives and restores old, and worn clothing to new. This Global Change Award winning, patent-pending innovation has the power to disrupt the entire fashion industry, shifting the consumer mindset of lifestyle to landfill, by making worn out garments look brand new, decreasing consumers desire to shop for new items. In a single home laundry wash BIORESTORE exfoliates garment fibres removes piling, which restores color, shape, surface and hand feel.
Blue Bite is a market leader in connected products, providing innovative ways for brands to use connecting technologies such as QR and NFC to communicate directly with their users via a phone. Blue Bite Circularity enables end-to-end traceability from sourcing and supply chain to second-hand markets and recycling. By providing brands, suppliers, and consumers with Digital Product IDs and provenance tracking to aid in transparency.
Create2Stay is a plugin, white label, re-commerce platform with the simple purpose of democratizing re-commerce, thus making it accessible and simple to use for everyone. By doing so, Create2Stay enables small, medium, and large businesses to gain a foothold in the thriving re-commerce market.
Infinited Fiber Company is on a mission to make textile circularity a daily reality by converting cellulose-rich materials such as old clothes, used cardboard, or rice straw into unique, biodegradable soft fibres called Infinna™. The fibre is currently made entirely of post-consumer textile waste, by which the company reduces the world’s reliance on virgin raw materials.
Loop Digital Wardrobe is the single social commerce platform that has made interaction in the fashion ecosystem significantly easier by automatically digitalising and connecting wardrobes of fashionistas and their friends & linking it with leading retailers and 2nd hand marketplaces as well instagram and tik tok accounts. At LOOP, sustainability is not an ask but a simple outcome as all secondary life options for fashion products are only one click away to make circular fashion not a distant dream, but a new reality.
Reflaunt defines the future of circular fashion by allowing brands, department stores and other fashion retailers to participate in the second-hand trade. Through white-labelled resale solutions, Reflaunt unlocks loyalty, growth, and insight for retailers.
Renewcell, named one of the World’s Most Innovative Companies 2021 by Fast Company, is closing the loop on fashion by being the first company to make 100% textile-to-textile virgin quality recycling work at scale. Through its patented process, Renewcell can upcycle cellulosic textile waste, such as cotton clothes, transforming it into a pristine new material called Circulose®. Brands can then use Circulose® to replace high-impact raw materials like fossil oil and cotton in their textile products without compromising on quality.
Upcycle Labs turns fashion’s biggest problem – waste – into additional revenue for brands and retailers. Their innovative technology turns fashion waste into products and produces quality contemporary décor, shop fittings, and interior-related products made of the brand’s fashion inventory for the world’s most respected luxury brands.