PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
Today, adidas announced Sport Infinity, the sportswear giant’s plan for a new breed of sporting goods that will never be thrown away. Instead, football (soccer) players will be able to constantly reimagine and recycle their dream products using an inexhaustible 3-D “super-material.” Every gram of sportswear, including the boots of Argentine soccer star Leo Messi, will be broken down to be remolded again in a waste-free, adhesive-free process that gives consumers more scope for personalization than ever before.
COLLABORATION -
Award-winning British designer Christopher Raeburn showcased his new Spring/Summer 2016 SARAWAK collection on Tuesday at London Fashion Week. Raeburn worked closely with apparel branding, labeling, packaging and embellishments company Avery Dennison RBIS (Retail Branding and Information Solutions) to explore sustainability throughout the design process, from mood board to the runway.
PRESS RELEASE -
Who: Avery Dennison RBIS, a global leader in apparel branding, labeling, packaging, embellishments and RFID solutions, collaborated with award-winning designer Christopher Raeburn at London Fashion Week.
What: RBIS builds on four seasons of successful collaborations with Christopher Raeburn, providing creative and sustainable embellishments and branding solutions for the Spring/Summer 2016 ‘SARAWAK’ collection. This standout collection features flock designs and studs, which were heat applied to the garments. Additionally, the entire collection incorporates sustainable branding, including high-definition woven labels made from recycled yarns.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
The Sustainable Angle is a UK-based not-for-profit organization that initiates and supports projects that help minimize the environmental impact of industry and society. Its principal project, The Future Fabrics Expo, now in its fifth year, focuses on the fashion industry and how its egregious environmental impacts can be reduced through innovation in textiles, and novel ideas to transform the fashion system and design practice.We recently spoke with Researcher and Project Manager Charlotte Turner about the impetus for the organization and its impacts to date.
COLLABORATION -
Today, C&A Foundation and Ashoka Changemakers launch Fabric of Change: Innovating for a Sustainable Apparel Industry, an online challenge that seeks innovations for building a fair and sustainable apparel industry. Winners will receive prizes totaling more than €100,000 to support their solutions.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
H&M has released an inspiring film emphasizing that there is only one rule in fashion – to recycle your clothes! Starring and narrated by icon Iggy Pop, and featuring appearances by blogger Pardeep Singh Bahra, emerging designer Loza Maleombho and artist Daniel Lismore, the piece supports H&M's Close the Loop collection and Global Recycling initiative, which to date, has recycled more than 260 billion pounds of unwanted clothing.
PRESS RELEASE -
Timberland’s ongoing environmental mission has reached a major milestone. This week, the footwear brand announced that it has planted its 2 millionth tree in the Horqin Desert in northern China as part of its efforts to stem deforestation in the region.The Stratham, N.H.-based company, a division of VF Corp., has a long track record of outreach in the area. In 2001, an employee suggested the brand take part in the reforestation of the Horqin Desert in inner Mongolia, which was the root cause of sandstorms in Japan.
WASTE NOT -
Striving toward sustainability is an ongoing trend in the fashion industry, as companies and consumers continue to find alternatives to cheap, disposable clothing and wasteful production practices.
The latest: American textile manufacturer Polartec this week celebrated recycling its billionth plastic bottle.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
From startup designers to major retailers, the fashion world continues to battle our culture of fast fashion and wasteful wardrobes with innovative designs and recycling efforts.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
Next month, H&M will introduce 16 new denim styles made using recycled cotton from textiles collected in the Garment Collecting initiative in H&M stores. The pieces for men, women and kids are the latest steps toward H&M’s goal of creating a closed loop for fashion, and will be available in all stores worldwide, as well as online.“Creating a closed loop for textiles, in which unwanted clothes can be recycled into new ones, will not only minimize textile waste, but also significantly reduce the need for virgin resources as well as other impacts fashion has on our planet,“ says CEO Karl-Johan Persson.
PRESS RELEASE -
The future of denim – where does it stand as a category? This question was addressed in the conversation panel – held in L.A. on August 19th – at the Avery Dennison RBIS Customer Design & Innovation Center. The panel hosted some of the fashion industry’s most denim-focused professionals to discuss, alongside the audience, how consumer trends are shifting, and some of the influencing factors that might be contributing to an underlying conversation on the category.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
Patagonia Provisions — a initiative from conscientious outdoor apparel brand Patagonia aimed at rethinking our food chain — has launched a groundbreaking partnership with family-owned meat company Wild Idea Buffalo to conserve and restore the grasslands of South Dakota, while producing a sustainably sourced Buffalo Jerky. This is the latest addition to the company’s food line designed to create positive change in the food industry.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
Not to be confused with the Fruit Rollups many of us probably grew up with here in the States — we’re talking about a solution to one of South Holland's (not to mention the rest of the Western world’s) biggest social issues (food waste), developed by a group of undergraduates from Willem de Kooning Academie in Rotterdam.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
Knowing how conventional cotton is grown and denim is made, always-a-better-way outdoor apparel brand Patagonia has set out to change the industry. The company has partnered with chemical company Archroma on a new denim collection, launched this week — which is Fair Trade certified and said to use 84 percent less water, 30 percent less energy and 25 percent less CO2 compared to conventional denim dyeing processes — as well as a campaign telling us all about it.
SUPPLY CHAIN -
A new report released today from Rainforest Action Network (RAN) documents decades of human rights abuses suffered by communities at the frontlines of plantation expansion for tree-based fabric production. Lessons from the Incense Forest implicates popular American brands, which RAN has dubbed the ‘Fashion Fifteen’, as being at risk for deforestation and human rights violations in their supply chains. Prominent brands include fashion giant Ralph Lauren, whose Annual General Meeting (AGM) is to take place in New York City this Thursday, August 6th.
WASTE NOT -
Just weeks after partnering with surfer Kelly Slater on his new men’s apparel line, Outerknown, upcyled fiber supplier Aquafil today announced it has partnered with Speedo USA on a take-back program that will allow Speedo’s post-manufacturing swimwear scraps to be upcycled into Aquafil’s 100 percent regenerated ECONYL® nylon.
THE NEXT ECONOMY -
As only 15 percent of clothes, shoes and accessories are recycled each year — with the remaining 85 percent, 10.5 million tons, ending up in landfills — more and more apparel brands (including H&M, The North Face, American Eagle Outfitters, and most recently, Levi-Strauss) are taking initiative to collect and recycle textiles
SUPPLY CHAIN -
If you’re a small-scale designer or apparel brand, managing your supply chain efficiently and sustainably can be a challenge. MadeRight, a startup that recently launched out of Y Combinator, wants to change that.MadeRight is helping designers simplify the textile manufacturing process through its consortium of ethical, global factories and its procedures to streamline product movement.
LEADERSHIP -
Forest conservation firm Wildlife Works' factory in Kenya has become the first in Africa to be both carbon neutral and certified by Fair Trade USA.On the heels of this announcement, Wildlife Works is launching its first-ever carbon-neutral, Fair Trade-certified t-shirts, designed by fashion brand Threads 4 Thought (T4T). The clothing company will be contributing over $6,000 in Fair Trade premiums directly to Wildlife Works factory workers.
WASTE NOT -
With ever-changing fashion trends, cheap and disposable clothing creates heaping piles of landfill trash around the world. Two recent developments in the fashion industry — an art exhibit and a recycled clothing line — aim to spread awareness of and combat this mounting problem.
Waste on Display
First, a new art installation in Hong Kong by eco-friendly fashion NGO Redress illustrates the enormity of clothing waste and the associated environmental impacts. Made from 360 kg of discarded clothing, the YWASTE? exhibit represents the amount of textiles dumped into Hong Kong landfills every two minutes — 10,800 kg, or nearly 800 lbs an hour!