Circular economy

In the “traditional” linear system, the manufacture of fashion products takes place according to the logic of ‘take-make-use-dispose’ (resources-production-consumption-disposal): raw materials, often non-renewable, are extracted and used to create yarns, then garments, which are ultimately thrown away to be incinerated or stacked in a landfill. The circular economy, on the contrary, aims to eliminate the consumption of virgin natural resources by:

• Excluding waste and scrap from design,
• Keeping products and materials in use for as long as possible,
• Regenerating natural systems.

Respectively, these three points focus on :

• avoiding the creation of waste and pollution from the design phase,
• using, reusing, remanufacturing, and recycling rather than produce new products from scrap, keeping materials circulating in the economy for as long as possible
• excluding the use of non-renewable resources and enhancing renewable ones, for instance by returning valuable nutrients to the soil or using renewable energy as opposed to relying on fossil fuels.

We will talk more about circular economy in the following chapters. In this context, we want to share some practical ideas about how you can apply these principles to your brand: for example, you can offer a repair and mending service to replace damaged parts of the garment and keep it in the system, or you can think to activate a rental system for very particular and expensive items of clothing, e.g. ceremony dresses. If it is not possible to repair a product, then you can consider its collection and recycling: in this case, the value of the product per se is lost, but the value of the materials from which it is made is preserved.

Until now, end-of-life management has not been considered in the design phase of brands and designers. But the role of the designer today has changed radically and requires a new mindset in approaching the creative process that considers the impact of the garment throughout its entire value cycle.