Institute of Positive Fashion - 1. Circular Design

KEY STAKEHOLDERS

LEAD

ENABLERS

KEY SYNERGY TOPICS

CONSUMER EMPOWERMENT
CIRCULAR AND SHARING BUSINESS MODELS
POST-USE ECOSYSTEM
SORTATION AND RECYCLING
POLICY AND REGULATION

To maximise utilisation and help reduce demand for new physical clothing, designers and manufacturers must create items for circularity, using recycled, recyclable, and renewable inputs, and minimising material use throughout the process. At present, clothing design and creation is far from where it needs to be to maximise value and minimise negative social and environmental impacts. A mindset change is needed across the industry and circular design must become standard practice.

Designing to minimise material use and waste, and using recycled and recyclable materials, represent fundamental first steps. A solid starting point for minimising material use and waste is through embracing digital garments, zero-waste and on-demand manufacturing, the use of post-production offcuts, and digital use in design and sample creation. The overarching focus should be to create garments that have multiple lives. A focus on emotional and physical durability will ensure that garments are suitable for reuse and repair. Garments must also be designed so that they can be easily disassembled and recycled when they can no longer be worn. This mindset and practice shift is crucial, as design is the starting point to the fashion value chain with many critical links across the ecosystem. For example, designing for disassembly and recyclability will enable expansion of recycling infrastructure, as the increase in supply of quality feedstock improves commercial viability of recycling.

DILYS WILLIAMS

PROFESSOR OF FASHION DESIGN FOR SUSTAINABILITY AND DIRECTOR OF CENTRE FOR SUSTAINABLE FASHION, LONDON COLLEGE OF FASHION

“When we’re talking about design for sustainability, we’re talking about reducing consumption. Durability only works if you’re not buying as much stuff.”

Recommendations

Mainstreaming circular design: Brands to integrate circular design into core business strategy (including across all product lines) and work with academics,
or other specialists, to deliver ongoing training on its principles to designers and key business functions, in line with the development of new technologies and end markets. This is in addition to continuing education and training on circular design for fashion students and independent designers.
Designing for reprocessing: Reprocessors to orchestrate formal discussions with brands, designers, and manufacturers on working together to achieve design suitable for disassembly and reprocessing. This should include the establishment of clear guidelines on how to make products recyclable without compromising on durability.
Adopting digital prototyping: Brands to adopt digital prototyping to enable the visualisation of a complete product before it is physically built. This will facilitate the designing out of waste. Academia and other training institutions must also work with brands to ensure that fashion students are being trained in the use of 3D digital prototyping software.

BETHANY WILLIAMS

FOUNDER AT BETHANY WILLIAMS

“Our new collection involves partnering to get all waste from existing companies and to take their waste into our social manufacturing supply chain. It is about thinking of systems design.”

CASE STUDY

Future Fashion Factory

RELEVANT ACTION AREAS

CIRCULAR DESIGN
ENHANCED IDENTIFICATION AND TRACKING

Future Fashion Factory (FFF) is a £5.4 million industry-led research and development (R&D) partnership driving innovation, through the development of new digital and advanced textile technologies, to enhance the UK luxury fashion and textiles industry’s shift to a circular economy. It links textile design and manufacturing centres, within the Leeds City Region, to London’s creative design and retail centres. Membership extends to nearly 400 businesses across the supply chain and involves collaboration with the University of Leeds, University of Huddersfield, and Royal College of Art.

The aim of FFF is to enable fashion and textile businesses to be more agile in adapting their designs to offer the right product at the right time. FFF projects harness digital technologies, including AI, to make this a reality. This can be through the adoption of data-driven design, where designers and brands use analytics to forecast consumer trends to tailor designs to market demand. It can also be through communicating the tactile and physical properties of fabric virtually to the customer. For example, Numerion Software are working with luxury fabric manufacturers to create digital swatch books, which facilitate realistic virtual try-on for apparel. Similarly, clothing and textile manufacturer Abraham Moon & Sons is constructing digital archives of over 150 years of creative output to allow clients to engage with virtual models of their textiles. In both cases, fewer physical samples are needed. FFF projects, such as this, enhance luxury fashion design whilst continuing to support creativity, keep the process cost-effective, and reduce environmental impact and waste.

CASE STUDY

Creative Apparel

RELEVANT ACTION AREAS

CIRCULAR DESIGN

Creative Apparel is a Stockport based company, founded in 1988. Its founder, Phil Millar, supplied niche branded T-shirts to the Hacienda, Stone Roses and the Manchester underground music scene. From there, the range came to embrace fast fashion and then workwear. In response to the demand created after Euro ‘96, the company started to work on re-labelling, bagging, printing, and embroidery for a retail market. Currently, Phil Millar is transforming production from a linear take- make-dispose supply chain to a sustainable circular economy model.

The Company is relocating to an Eco factory on a brownfield site, utilising AI to predict orders, which eliminates waste, and drones to deliver to the last mile customer. Pin-registration systems will be used to increase printing accuracy and speed up production times. Collaboration with the University of Liverpool will secure a ‘lights-out manufacturing’ system that is fully automated. Collaboration with the Internet of Things (IoT) will enable machines to talk to each other, balancing production, preventing stagnation and build- up of stock.

Phil Millar aims to put sustainability at the core of manufacturing. The Company only uses ethically sourced materials from factories where people are treated fairly and pushes for UK retailers to provide large-scale contracts, enabling sustainability initiatives in manufacturing to get off the ground.