New UK hub promises to be a ‘one-stop shop’ for circular fashion

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Experts agree that circular business models are the key to making fashion and footwear more sustainable — but there are still many barriers to uptake. A new initiative launching this week in the UK hopes to provide a solution.

Circularity platforms Recomme and ACS have joined forces with the UK Fashion and Textile Association (UKFT) to launch Repurpose, a processing and innovation hub that claims to be a “one-stop shop” for circularity. Repurpose will combine Recomme’s sorting software with ACS’s existing rental, resale and repair services. They also promise to be able to recycle old fibres into new ones — which, if successful, would crack the code on one of fashion’s biggest obstacles when it comes to achieving circularity.

Circular solutions have been challenging to scale for businesses. Currently, brands have to work with multiple third-party platforms for different services, which can be complex and expensive. And there are many hurdles to recycling, primarily the lack of textile recycling technologies operating at scale. The widespread use of blended fibres is a particular challenge technologically, and footwear brings its own problems, given the variety of materials used to put together a single shoe.

Repurpose aims to increase efficiency and profitability for brands and retailers, and provide them with data to help scale their solutions. “By bringing together our expertise and resources, we are making circular infrastructure more accessible — both commercially and logistically, which we know is one of the key hurdles to many presently,” says Tom Grafton, founder of Recomme.

Based at ACS’s existing facility in Scotland, Repurpose will act as a triaging service that ensures unwanted and damaged products are sent to the right place to maximise their value rather than going to landfill, according to the founding organisations.