Fashion Recoded … 2000 gallons of water to make a pair of jeans is not sustainable … time to slip on your mushrooms, and 3D print your future shoes

January 24, 2023

The fashion industry produces almost 20% of the world’s wastewater and is responsible for 2-8% of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the United Nations.

Natural fibres like cotton and wool require significant land and water; and synthetic fibres, such as nylon, are derived from oil, gas, or coal in an energy-intensive chemical process. Producing a pair of jeans requires about 2,000 gallons of water, more than enough to supply a person with eight cups of drinking water per day for ten years.

If nothing is done, the fashion industry will account for more than a quarter of the world’s carbon footprint by 2050.

According to the UN, the average consumer buys 60% more pieces of clothing today than 15 years ago, and uses each item only half as long. That means we’re throwing away more clothes than we know what to do with, as the mountains of used garments washing up on African beaches attest to. According to one estimate, consumers in the UK keep their clothes only 2.2 years, on average.

Other surveys show garments being tossed after being worn only seven times. Around the world, a truckload of textiles is landfilled or incinerated every second, according to a European Commission strategy paper on sustainable textiles. The paper predicts that the consumption of clothing and footwear is expected to increase 63% by 2030, making recycling a more urgent imperative than ever.

Here are some of the most interesting reports on the future of textiles and fashion:

Fashion used to be all about style, typically driven by luxury brands and premium designers. Fashion was a statement about who we are, or want to be. It was aspirational, desirable and largely superficial.

Today, its about much more. Products (and services) that can improve our lives.

Take Veja shoes for example, the fashion-essential white sneakers, made with sustainable Amazonian rubber, constructed in Brazil, by a French company. It’s good for the world, and it makes a statement about what we believe in ourselves.

Many brands still stand out for beautiful products, but also with an inspiring, innovative story too. Often, it is retail brands rather than product brands who can tell this story best, and also have more scope to innovate.

Consider Farfetch, founded in 2007 by the Portuguese entrepreneur Jose Neves, the luxury marketplace that partners with small boutiques around the world, poured its profits into sustainability initiatives, including acquiring the resale technology company Luxclusif to power its own secondhand business, Second Life, and launching an in-house eco-friendly label, There Was One, (created by Italy’s New Guards Group, exclusively for Farfetch) which creates durable basics.

Here are some of the most interesting reports:

Sustainable and desirable

The average shopper now buys 60% more clothes than they did 50 years ago. And wears only 30% of of them, typically 5-6 times before disposal. The fashion industry has been a major contributor to climate change and biodiversity loss—which means the industry’s sustainability efforts are critical to our planet’s health. The fashion industry produces almost 20% of the world’s wastewater and is responsible for 2-8% of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the United Nations.

On, the Swiss sportswear business, born in Switzerland seven years ago, has become the fastest growing global running brand. Ithas launched a 100% recyclable, bio-based performance running shoe.  Some claimed it was impossible. But we chose to Dream On. The Cloudneo is now available via subscription to our Cyclon™ circularity program. Run. Recycle. Repeat.

 

Designer Tracy Reese took the radical step of moving her HQ from New York to Detroit as part of her mission to transform the city into a hub of ethical fashion manufacturing. Johannesburg-based designer Thebe Magugu used his collections to narrate stories about politics and history; for his 2021 collection, he interviewed South African women who worked as spies during apartheid, creating outfits that spoke to issues of gender and colonialism.

Some brands focused on creatively responding to consumers’ unmet needs. Myya, for instance, created a luxurious lingerie shopping experience for breast cancer patients, who historically have been forced to buy prosthetics and specialized bras at medical supply stores. Figs designed tasteful and comfortable scrubs for medical professionals, cultivating a loyal following of 1.7 million customers who appreciate the care that has gone into these outfits.

Denim brand Good American recognized that women’s bodies fluctuate in size 31 times over the course of their lives, forcing them to buy new clothes. The brand launched its Always Fits jeans and swimwear collections, which are designed to span four sizes, ensuring they look flattering even as customers’ bodies change.

Shoe brand Hoka developed by two former Salomon executives in Annoy, France, has paid close attention to runners’ needs, developing new foams and carbon-fibre plates that give them extra propulsion, without sacrificing comfort. While the industry sought minimalist designs, it went for a maximalist (lots of cushioning!) approach.

Direct and realtime

Lets talk about Shein. Forget fast fashion, this is realtime. In fact most items are not even made when ordered, but then made and shipped within 24 hours, direct to your door. The $100 billion Chinese brand produces ultra-cheap clothes at ultra-fast speed, creating an ultra-big hype on social media. The Haul. TikTok on steroids. There’s waste, and human rights, and more. But there also some insights to learn from – AI predictive, on demand, social influence.

Gymshark is now 10 years old, but Ben Francis’ business continues to thrive, built on an online platform selling direct to consumers, fuelled by social media, and is now extending into physical stores. In 2020, the company was valued at over £1 billion.

Virtual and metaverse

While Zuckerberg’s Meta vision resulted in a 70% fall in his company’s share price, the web3-enabled world is taking shape with brands like Ledger and The Dematerialised. Nike acquired RTFKT to merge physical and virtual worlds. The latest evolution of the Nike Adapt platform features auto-lacing, haptic feedback, enhanced lighting, gesture control, walk detection, wireless charging, NFC link, App connectivity, AI/ML algo, and Move to Earn.

Dress X became the world’s largest digital fashion store targeting Gen Z awho seek digital, sustainable, and affordable fashion – even if it’s virtual. The company was named one of the finalists of LVMH Innovation Award 2022 in the category 3D/Virtual Product Experience & Metaverse.

 

Retailers as brands

Farfetch stocks goods from various boutiques big and small in over 50 different countries. It is stepping out with its very own in-house fashion brand. Dubbed ‘ There Was One ‘ the line takes inspiration from elevated classics and includes tailored blazers, soft slip dresses, denim jackets, and zippered leggings, and draws from the platform’s data-driven insights on what customers are actively searching for on Farfetch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-8XTsvBrRU

 

Brands beyond products

Brands are becoming increasingly independent of products, and more about consumers and communities. Take gaming brands for example. They define a lifestyle, culture, value set. Take 100 Thieves. The gaming brand collaborates with Gucci – including a limited-edition backpack from the Gucci Off The Grid collection—made from recycled and sustainably sourced materials— in a new shade of bright red featuring a distinctive circular patch with the 100 Thieves logo.

Brands with stories

ISKO, a brand of Turkey’s Sanko Group, is the world’s largest producer of denim fabric, with 250 million meters of fabric a year. It says it “creates the soul of jeans, the essence of the most popular fashion style that has become universal.” It is a great example of building an ingredient brand, in a way that the premium ingredient enhances the core brand. Read more.

Outerknown seeks to make clothing differently. Created by world champion surfer Kelly Slater in 2015, with the goal of creating high-quality, sustainable fashion that would stand up to any conditions—including those you’ll find in the water. The brand’s clothing is made using eco-conscious materials like organic cotton and hemp fibres, as well as recycled polyester derived from recycled plastic bottles.  Their jeans are made at the world’s cleanest denim facility, using less water, fewer chemicals, and organic cotton. They guarantee S.E.A. JEANS for life. Now your most comfortable jeans are also your most sustainable.

Cool and conscious

18 years ago, VEJA‘s founders decided to travel to the Amazon rainforest and meet the producers of wild rubber in person, the same rubber we use in every one of our VEJA soles.​ ​ Those producers protect the forest and live in harmony with it. This rubber, extracted from forest trees, is a completely ecological raw material.​ Last year, a team of VEJA members traveled to the Amazon rainforest to discover the Chico Mendes reserve.​ One of the many reserves that VEJA works to keep the Amazon rainforest alive.​ These families of rubber producers we work with are paid 4 times more than the market price.​

Vestiaire Collective is banning fast fashion from being bought, sold or listed on the platform. “We say no to a system that supports overconsumption, poor quality and over production. Its mission is to drive change from within the fashion industry. We aim, over the next 3 years, to become a fast fashion-free platform that celebrates quality, craftsmanship and sustainability.”

Fabrics and production

Swiss innovator HeiQ creates some of the most high performance textile technologies in the market today. Founded in 2005 as a spin-off of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. Two examples: HeiQ Smart Temp provides textiles with the ability to dynamically respond to body heat, keeping you cool and dry when you are hot, and retaining body heat when you get chilly. This keeps you comfortable at all times. HeiQ Clean Tech makes processing of textiles more ecological, improves productivity and efficiency of textile manufacturing, and helps to significantly lower CO2 emission. In many cases by more than 30%. HeiQ AeoniQ makes yarn from cellulosic raw materials in a process that captures five tons of carbon for each ton of yarn. It operates a pilot plant with a capacity of 100 tons per year and plans a giga-factory for 2025

Swedish company Renewcell recently opened the world’s first commercial-scale textile recycling plant, turning old clothes that would have gone to landfill into a new sustainable material called circulose. The factory process, which also saves some 90 billion liters of fresh water a year, is based on a raft of custom-made ABB technologies.

MAS is one of the world’s leading textile creators and manufacturers, promoting unconventional idea-generation to inspire the world’s fashion and retail brands. Innovation and sustainability are key. MAS is globally recognised as a pioneer of women’s empowerment in the global apparel industry through the award winning programme – Women Go Beyond, improving and sustaining employee livelihoods, nurturing communities, whilst working aggressively to identify and minimise the environmental impact of our operations and products. MAS owns the world’s first purpose built eco-manufacturing plant – Thurulie. Their lean driven, empowered and people-centric culture facilitates innovation throughout the value chain. The strategic investment portfolio of businesses includes raw materials, brands and private industrial parks, with an active presence across Asia, Middle East, North America and Africa.

NEFFA a Dutch textiles business founded by Aniela Hoitink, its focused on developing mushroom-based mycelium, and using 3D printing to create customised products using body scans to create the perfect fit. The result is a seamless, customised, sustainable product. Operationally she is supported by German shoe machinery company Desma.

Infinited Fiber is a Finnish biotech with the technology to turn old clothes into new, super versatile, high-quality textile fibres that look and feel like cotton –  regenerating cotton into Infinna (TM).  “It’s like some kind of magical Willy Wonka machine. Throw in your old clothes, or used cardboard boxes, and they magically become my new T-shirt or jeans” 

Vegea was founded in 2016 in Milan, Italy, creating an alternative to leather .For every 2 bottles of wine produced there is a bottle of waste. Vegea takes the waste from winemaking, and turns the dried grape marc into an eco-composite alternative to leather … now used in Bentley interiors and Gucci shoes.

More disruptors

German startup circular.fashion develops a platform that enables fashion brands to design garments for circularity from the very beginning of their lifecycle. The platform enables a transparent flow of information between material suppliers, fashion brands, customers, and recyclers. It features a database containing hundreds of fabrics selected for their sustainable properties and validated for future recyclability, as well as circular design guidelines. The company also provides a unique circularity.ID for each piece, enabling full transparency into a garment’s journey.

 

One of the challenges that limit garment recycling is the need to disassemble large volumes of clothing very fast. Resortecs – REcycling, SORting, TEChnologieS – is an H&M Global change award-winning start-up that develops technology to empower smart, industrial-scale textile disassembly and recycling. Founded in 2017 by Belgium’s Cédric Vanhoeck and Vanessa Counaert, Resortecs drives circularity in the textile industry with innovative heat-dissolvable stitching threads and thermal disassembly systems that make recycling easy. All without sacrificing the creativity, design, and quality of clothing. Garments are difficult to recycle because they are difficult to disassemble. Resortecs’ globally patented solution consists of two steps: Smart Stitch™: garments designed for disassembly by simply changing the thread The heat-dissolvable threads melt at high temperatures (150-200°C), making the seams disappear automatically. Smart Disassembly™: patented thermal systems to dismantle garments 5x faster, with industrial ovens processing up to 10 tons of textiles per day. No risk of damaging the fabric thanks to low-oxygen chamber.

Technologies that allow recovery of materials from discarded textile enable resource reuse for the creation of new products. Australian startup BlockTexx recovers polyester and cellulose from discarded textiles and clothing of any color or condition. The startup’s proprietary technology separates polyester and cotton clothes, sheets, and towels back into raw materials. It turns them into high-quality polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and cellulose for reuse in new products. The startup’s recovered materials find applications in many industries, including textile, packaging, building products, pharmaceutical, and food.

Technologies that allow for continuous recoloring of textiles without the use of toxic additives promote the reuse of produced clothes. Swedish startup Vividye develops a reversible coloring technology. It enables the application of all sorts of colors and designs to textiles, which can later be removed to re-apply new ones. The process is resource-efficient and does not require toxic chemicals. The company uses filtered and reused wastewater to further reduce the environmental impact. Vividye’s technology introduces new creative opportunities for designers, making it possible to color and recolor textiles multiple times.

Rifò is an Italian startup that makes high-quality garments and accessories, using recycled and recyclable textile fibers. The startup transforms old clothes into yarn to create new cashmere sweaters and hats. It utilizes a unique mechanical and craftsmanship process to turn fabric leftovers and old clothes into new garments with identical qualities to the original products. This method allows to recycle textile waste, as well as to reduce the amount of water, dyes, and chemicals used to create new clothes.

Hong Kong-based startup The R Collective upcycles rescued textiles, reuse materials, and collaborates with fashion designers to create circular apparel. The startup utilizes a broad range of rescued quality waste materials from fibers and fabrics to fasteners. It diverts the best materials from landfills into the circular fashion system by upcycling them into clothes.

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