Glossy
Patagonia Expands its Worn Wear Repair and Recycle Program
Patagonia is expanding its Worn Wear program to raise awareness about how to repair and donate previously owned garments.
Patagonia announced that it will launch a standalone Worn Wear site that will provide detailed information about its program (which backs a “Repair is Radical” mantra) and incentivize consumers to donate old garments with discounts on new purchases. The company, which has long been hailed for its commitment to sustainable practices, started Worn Wear in 2013 in an effort to increase longevity of its products by offering repair services at select stores. It also has a repair center in Reno, Nevada that conducts an average 30,000 repairs a year, and a traveling truck that tours around the country conducting free fixes of broken zippers, rips and lost buttons.
The site is slated to launch in mid to late April, in partnership with Yerdle — a “recommerce” organization — which will allow Patagonia to sell pre-used goods online.
This year, Patagonia went on its first college tour, visiting 21 universities to offer repair services and giving speeches at select schools about the process. Among them was the Fashion Institute of Technology, which the truck visited last week.
“Students are very aware of these issues, so they’re bringing in their awareness as they become future designers,” said Suzanne Sullivan McGillicuddy, assistant dean of students and co-chair of the FIT sustainability council. “We have a minor in ethics and sustainability, and last year, in its second year, it quadrupled in number of students joining the major.”
Natalie Grillon, founder of Project Just, an informational platform focused on sustainable fashion and beauty, said Patagonia continues to be an example among brands of launching successful sustainability efforts.
“If anybody’s going to do it, Patagonia will be successful at it because they have such a loyal brand following of people,” she said. “It aligns with their long-term strategy of trying to make ethical and sustainable options, from source to end of life.”
*This story first appeared on Glossy
Plastic Waste is Fashion’s New Sustainability Gimmick
Looking for the latest in eco-friendly fashion? One word: plastics.
H&M announced on Tuesday that it will debut its second Conscious Exclusive campaign — an upscale version of its Conscious Collection program founded in 2012 — which includes formal wear for men, women and children. The line uses recycled polyester made from plastic waste, an estimated eight million tons of which litters oceans each year, and is slated to be available in 160 stores around the globe in late April. The move comes shortly after Adidas partnered with Parley for the Oceans, a nonprofit that reduces oceanic plastic waste, to make running shoes made almost entirely out of discarded plastic.
For the H&M line, the Swedish retailer teamed with Bionic Yarn, a New York-based company that turns plastic bottles into technical yarns and fabrics. The signature piece of H&M’s line is a blush pink pleated gown (which retails for $249) modeled by Natalia Vodianova, who was tapped to be the face of this year’s Conscious Exclusive campaign. Singer Pharrell Williams serves as as Bionic Yarn’s creative director, and has previously teamed up with brands like Timberland and G-Star on footwear and denim that use the bionic yarn technology.

“It’s an excellent PR stunt, for H&M to raise awareness about ocean pollution — along with Adidas’ partnership with Parley for the Ocean,” said Lauren Slowik, outreach coordinator and design evangelist at 3-D printing company Shapeways. “But I like to hope that ocean trash is a finite resource and not something we can build whole industries on. The only real positive I see is that it helps to bring supply chain and production of materials to the forefront on consumers’ minds.”
H&M and Adidas said their ocean plastic efforts were designed to be more than just ploys to attract eco-conscious consumers. Adidas began selling its recycled shoes for $220 in November 2016 with a commitment to making a minimum of 1 million pairs by the end of 2017. It also plans to team with Parley on communication, education and research efforts.
Meanwhile, H&M is attempting to increase its percentage of garments made from sustainable materials, which was reported at 20 percent in 2015. It also asserts to be one of the biggest users of recycled polyester and organic cotton, and has a lofty goal for all cotton to be sustainably sourced by 2020.
However, despite its commitment to sustainability, H&M has still been vague in its transparency efforts and faces ongoing criticism for being a fast fashion retailer that is still using significant resources to produce low-priced goods. Natalie Grillon, founder of Project Just, told Glossy in a previous article that despite the assertions made against the company, H&M has still made strides in efforts like employee wages.
“H&M comes under fire a lot for their initiatives because they do publicize it,” said Grillon. “When really, they’ve made a ton of effort in support of better wages. But then they talk about it a lot, and then they come under fire a lot for anything at all that goes wrong.”
*This story first appeared on Glossy
Zara Launches First Sustainable Fashion Line
Fast-fashion retailer Zara is trying its hand at sustainability with a new fashion line made using environmentally friendly materials.
The push by Zara, which has nearly 2,000 stores in 88 countries, is indicative of the continued push for increased transparency in retail, and demonstrates the importance for retailers to commit to sustainability, according to Brooke Blashill, svp and director at Boutique@Ogilvy.
“As any retailer is planning for the next generation of customers, and its business in general, sustainability and social impact have to be a top consideration, and it’s positive to see Zara take a step to improve its supply chain,” she said.
According to the Zara site, “the collection embraces a woman who looks into a more sustainable future” and is made with materials like organic cotton, recycled wool and Tencel, a recycled fabric derived from wood cellulose. Zara says that its Tencel is sourced from sustainably managed forests and that the farming process for its organic cotton uses 90 percent less water than usual cotton.
It’s a tenuous stance given Zara’s role in perpetuating the trend of cheaply produced goods, typically made from easily procured materials, sold at a low price point. Kathleen Wright, founder of Piece & Co., said in the Glossy Podcast in August that it’s nearly impossible to reconcile sustainability with fast fashion and still turn a profit, making environmentally friendly efforts incongruous to the brand identity of companies like Zara.
“Wouldn’t it be a dream if [fast fashion retailers] stood up and said, ‘we are going to do one less delivery this year, we’re putting too many clothes out there, and we’re going to take a profit cut?’,” she said. “The race to the bottom in my opinion is very real.”
The Spanish company is also launching a social campaign using the hashtag #JoinLife that includes “Boxes with a Past,” a selection of artists on the site creatively transforming Zara cardboard boxes into works of art. Zara lso launched a series of clothing collection receptacles at 300 locations in Europe for consumers to drop unwanted clothing of any brand, with plans to expand the effort to Asia and North America in 2017.
Users can also request free clothing collection in Spain and additional clothing will also be donated to the Red Cross and Oxfam, as well as to textile projects at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Lenzing, an Austrian based company focused on sustainable fabrics.
Blashill said focusing on environmentally friendly offerings is an increasingly important focus for retailers like Zara, noting that a recent Nielsen study found that 75 percent of millennials would be willing to pay extra for sustainable offerings. Competitor H&M launched its own Conscious line back in 2012.
The move also comes on the heels of retailers making increased pushes towards transparency, including Gap announcing earlier this month that it would disclose its full global factory list. Wright told Glossy in a previous article that efforts like these help create a domino effect of other brands enacted sustainable efforts.
“When a big brand steps forward like this it’s exciting because it shows that if a company at this scale can make a change like this, other more nimble companies can do the same,” Wright said.
*This story first appeared on Glossy