At a summit, last week in Gran Canaria, European Fashion Alliance (EFA) discussed measures to encourage a more sustainable and inclusive future for the fashion industry. The EFA believes that sustainability and digital transformation, together with innovation, education, and labor market measures, will be the drivers for the fashion industry to make textiles more durable, repairable, reusable, and recyclable. Moreover, the botched system of accountability within the industry leaves room for social and environmental neglect, emphasizing the need for increased focus on transparency in supply chains. Companies like FibreTrace, pioneer traceable fiber technology, are setting a precedent. They recently launched a cloud-based mapping tool with fiber, material, certification, documents, and data. The company has made the product ‘free of charge’ to encourage the apparel and textile industry to claim accountability and responsibility for their supply chains.
Further this week, a new European project announced to aim to provide the blueprint for reducing textile waste by 80%. The extended project, launched last December, will achieve this goal by developing and demonstrating effective textile recovery, waste valorization, and recycling processes. These processes will be combined with digital tools and data-driven solutions to support and maximize the impact of sustainable textile circularity. Aimplas is participating in this project and will focus on digital tools and technologies for textile recovery. Aimplas will be responsible for identifying and classifying textiles using optical separation systems, pre-processing and recovery of materials for recycling, and recycling of textile waste through the solvolysis process, including industrial textile products.
Further this week, Epson and designer Yuima Nakazato showed a glimpse of a more sustainable future for fashion. In addition to utilizing Epson’s digital textile printing to reproduce his unique and creative worldview, YUIMA NAKAZATO realized some of its creations with the help of a new, more sustainable, and potentially industry-transforming textile production process. Epson’s dry fiber technology, already used commercially to recycle office paper and requires virtually no water, has been adapted to produce printable non-woven fabric from used garments. The new fabric production process was revealed in Paris as part of a three-year collaboration between Epson and YUIMA NAKAZATO.
Further this week, Ralph Lauren unveiled C2C certified sweater leveraging a cashmere recycling program. This crew-neck sweater is the first of five iconic Ralph Lauren products that the company plans to C2C-certify by 2025. The C2C-certified Gold Cashmere Sweater is woven from fine cashmere fibers, dyed in rich hues, and features a converted signature label cut from organic cotton. It is featured in a multimedia consumer marketing campaign with models Andreea Diaconu and Simon Nessman.
As part of its Cradle to Cradle certification process, Ralph Lauren has launched a cashmere recycling program in partnership with Re-Verso, a leading textile manufacturing company that combines science and technology to develop a circular economy manufacturing system for superior-quality wool and cashmere.
Further this week, Mango is taking a further step in its sustainability efforts by launching its first denim capsule incorporating circular design criteria. The new collection includes various Mango Woman garments in denim, some with dirty washes, such as trousers, skirts, jumpsuits, gilets, and cropped jackets, in indigo and black, in on-trend silhouettes influenced by the 2000s. Low rise, cargo details, rips, and wide fits predominate the capsule. To achieve greater circularity, the new garments in the collection have been designed with a single type of fiber (100% cotton), at least 20% of which is recycled, while accessories such as rivets and jacron labels have been eliminated. The garments were designed using 3D digital design technology to reduce the number of samples produced. Inside the garments, there is a diagram explaining the circular design to its customers, thus reducing the production of paper labels.
From the above updates, it can be highlighted that brands, machine manufacturers, and global stakeholders are trying hard to make textile production ethical and greener. This is the only option left for the textile manufacturing countries to survive in the upcoming years.
