Circular Fashion Design

By Liam Stone

As someone who tries to be an environmentally conscious consumer, it can sometimes feel hopeless to navigate the fashion industry. Estimates state that the clothing industry produces up to 10% of global carbon emissions. Old clothing and textile waste accumulates in dumps as the industry continues to increase production. Along with unethical treatment of workers, the fashion industry is undeniably harmful for the health of our planet.

So far, fashion companies have only made minor improvements towards sustainability that are often over exaggerated through misleading advertising known as “green washing”. Patagonia has even admitted in a statement that, “no brand has actually figured out how to zero out the impact of making clothes, brands should tone their messaging down a bit.”

So is there hope for the fashion industry to become sustainable and where do we go from here? The answer may lie in circular design and the circular economy. The majority of the fashion industry follows a linear “take-make-waste” model where raw materials are produced into textiles that inevitably are discarded as non-recyclable waste. In response, a circular economy uses materials that are able to be recycled into new products after they are disposed of by consumers.

Some brands attempt to incorporate recycling into their clothing production, but the materials used in mainstream textiles degrade too quickly to be fit for recycling. In fact, the majority of recycled polyester currently used by large fashion brands are produced from bottles rather than recycled clothing. So how can we truly turn the fashion industry into a circular one?

One thing is obvious: clothes need to be better designed so they are less disposable and more recyclable by nature. Cheaply made materials have proven to be unsustainable. One response is to use a diversity of fibres in a fabric so that the weaknesses of certain fibre types aren’t disproportionate in the overall mix. Combining typical cotton or polyesters with bamboo, hemp, soy, and other cellulose fibres can result in textiles that can last longer and retain strength and flexibility post-consumer use.

Currently, new textile fibres are also being developed such as leather alternatives made from fungal material called MuSkin, fully renewable and biodegradable milk fibres called Qmilk, and fabrics and dyes produced from algae by a company called Algaeing. Research into improved synthetic fibres and recyclable plastics also continues – though plastic fibres have shown an abundance of their own environmental implications as they degrade.

Overall, there will need to be many reforms within the fashion industry to turn it into a truly circular one. While the development of improved textiles that are better suited for post-consumer recycling is only a start, it offers hope for how our economy can better coexist with the environment in the future.