Branding to create a market for reclaimed fabrics

Abstract
This project proposal is the creation of a visual labeling system, brand, and marketing strategy aimed at creating demand and desire for products made from reclaimed material that would otherwise be destined for landfills. Innovate with the materials we already have.

I. Introduction

This project proposal is the creation of a visual labeling system, brand, and marketing strategy aimed at creating demand and desire for products made from reclaimed fabrics and materials that would otherwise be destined for landfills. The purpose of this consumer-aimed campaign is to complement and enhance efforts being made by government and industry best practices to expedite these important supply chain and production changes. This project began as an exploration into how to deal with the massive amount of fabric waste caused by the fashion industry and will be primarily focused on this industry, but the concept of consumer labeling for recycled, renewed and used products can potentially extend to other consumer products.

II. The Problem

A. Significance of the problem In the United states 292.4 million tons of waste end up at municipal waste dumps. Although 94 million tons of this waste gets recycled or composted the majority of it ends up buried in landfills. The reasons people discard clothing varies, the item could be out of style, a poor fit for the individual, or simply worn out. Consumer products and the fashion industry thrive on temporality and have marketing and advertising specifically designed to shift consumers' tastes from season-to-season and year to year. The industry is driven by seasons and creates a desire for the newest colors, styles, and fits.

Today’s manufacturing process begins with raw natural materials being extracted from one part of the world, synthetic materials made in other parts of the world and then shipped mostly through cargo ships around the world where they are turned into bolts of fabric, sheets of metal, and parts and then shipped to manufacturers often, yet again, across the world, to wherever the lowest-paid labor can be found and made into articles of clothing, and hard goods that are shipped yet again to countries all over the world where they are sold at retail locations. Some items are bought but lots of products end up at discount retailers or get made into bundles and shipped, yet again across the world to be sold by the pound for scrap. Eventually, the products are either worn out or never get used and end up in landfills, burned, or sadly, end up in waterways.

Today raw materials like natural or synthetic fibers are made, they are turned into bolts of fabric, shipped to apparel makers often across the world, made into articles of clothing that are shipped yet again to countries all over the world where they are sold at retail locations. Some clothes are bought but lots of clothing ends up at discount retailers or getting made into bundles and shipped, yet again across the world to be sold by the pound. Eventually, the clothing is either worn out or never gets used and ends up in landfill, burned or sadly, as I mentioned before, ends up in waterways.

Because most fashion is seasonal and driven by low margins, Retailers depend on finding the lowest cost for labor, often in countries with lax environmental policies in order to produce clothing at a cost that carries a margin high enough to make a profit, yet low enough to appeal to consumer demand for the latest styles at an accessible price. raw materials like natural or synthetic fibers are made, they are turned into bolts of fabric, shipped to apparel makers often across the world, and made into articles of clothing that are shipped yet again to countries all over the world where they are sold at retail locations.

1. Overproduction and the high cost of cheap clothes

One of the fashion industry’s problems are with deadstock. Deadstock refers to the clothing and fabric that isn’t sold. It’s never been used. Deadstock makes up 30%of the 150 Billion garments created each year. Some of this gets donated but most of these items go straight into landfills. It’s easy to address deadstock, by simply not overproducing it in the first place. But because of the way clothing is produced, the actual costs are not factored into how we think about production. The 2019 fashion industry global market value is a staggering 406 billion dollar business. (Fashion United, n.d.) and a labor force of 3,384.1 million worldwide. A garment worker in India is paid an average of Rs. 10,000 to 12,000 (US$ 133 to 160 per month), (Society for Labor and Development, 2021, #3) while in China, a garment worker gets “1120 RMB (US$161) and 2480 RMB (US$357) per month, falling far short of the estimated living wage of 5410 RMB (US$778) per month.” (Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, n.d.), in Bangladesh, a worker can expect 8000 Taka(US$94) per month. (Kuenneke, 2020)compared to the median wage of US garment workers who are paid $14.31 per hour or $2290 per month. (U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2022)

Clothing manufacturing tends to move around to wherever the cheapest labor markets are. Wherever workers are abundant and willing to work for extremely low pay is where the manufacturing tends to shift. Working conditions, safety, and environmental impact are not a factor of consideration.

Today's fashion industry, particularly “fast-fashion” is a term defined as: “Clothing designs that move quickly from the catwalk to stores to meet new trends. The collections are often based on designs presented at Fashion Week events. Fast fashion allows mainstream consumers to purchase trendy clothing at an affordable price.” (Hayes, 2020) Retailers depend on exploiting cheap labor, often in countries with lax environmental policies in order to produce clothing at a cost that carries a margin high enough to make a profit, and low enough to appeal to consumer demand for the latest styles at an accessible price. Consumer tastes are shifting however, consumers are losing their appetite for fast fashion as evidenced by the bankruptcy of fast-fashion retailers like Forever 21. This trend in consumer distaste towards clothing derived from sweatshop labor could be seen as far back as 2004 as evidenced by the following survey results. “The Marymount surveys were conducted in 1995, 1996, and 1999. In each survey, three of four consumers said they would avoid shopping in a store if they knew the goods were produced under bad conditions, while not quite two of three say they would be more inclined to shop in stores combating sweatshops. The greater response to knowledge about bad conditions than good conditions suggests that consumers respond more to information that reduces their utility than to information that increases it— consistent with Kahneman and Tversky’s (1979) prospect theory that shows people weigh potential losses more heavily than potential gains. An average of 85 percent of respondents in the Marymount survey said they would pay $1 more for a $20 item if they could be assured that it was made under good conditions.” (Freeman & Ellliott, 2004, 4)Avoiding exploitive labor practices by shifting to local-based, domestic production that conforms to fair labor practices will increase the cost of individual clothing items but will decrease the unquantifiable, but very real costs of harm to the environment and local economies.

2. Product end of life
The amount of clothing that gets discarded and donated is staggering. The U.S. sends about 21 billion pounds of textile waste to landfills every year. The item that gets donated will be put into bins, sorted extremely quickly with a fast inspection looking for tears, stains, and seasonality, and only the items that are most likely to sell are tagged and sent out to be sold in thrift stores. High-value fabrics like cotton, denim, wool, linen, and leather are bundled to be sold in lots, Items that are torn, stained, missing buttons, or visibly worn out are thrown into trash bins, and items that are out of style, or not popular in the local market but are otherwise usable, get made into bundles that are sold by the ton and shipped to other continents, to countries like Ghana and Indonesia that have thriving used clothing markets. Once in these places, unwanted clothing eventually is burned, buried, or ends up in waterways. Of the clothing donated to charities, only 10-15% of it actually ends up in the secondhand market. (McCarthy, 2018). Clothing is sorted and this waste has a negative impact that is long-lasting. Fabrics, particularly synthetic fibers like nylon and polyester blends can take up to 200 years to break down and while they do, they emit toxic greenhouse gases that exacerbate our climate crisis. (McCarthy, 2018)

This is where circular fashion comes in. Circular fashion, related to the term circular design, is an emerging industry term for apparel that is designed from the beginning with the goal of making the end of life of the product as safe for our planet as possible.

A. Innovations

I started with desk research and speaking with fashion industry professionals to get a better understanding of the terms and way they look at the category of discarded clothing. I found that there are three types of clothing that could fit in the circular fashion category.

There are countless initiatives and innovations focused on solving the problems of over-production and end of life for fabrics. There are three that have direct relevance to the ability of circular systems to succeed.

1. Upcycling

Upcycling means converting a material into something of greater value than it originally was. Upcycling refers to reusing an object in a new way without degrading the material it is made from, as opposed to recycling which generally involves breaking down the original material and making it into something else, using more energy in the process. People have been upcycling for centuries, using old packaging and clothing in new ways, although more out of need than for the environment.

Supporters of the environmentally friendly practice of upcycling say people in developing countries have effectively been upcycling for years, using old packaging and clothing in new ways, although more out of need than for the environment. but upcycling is now taking off in other countries, reflecting an increased interest in eco-friendly products, particularly ones that are priced at an affordable level and proving profitable for the manufacturers. (Goldsmith, 2009)

Upcycling fabric to create new fashion is not new. If one visits Etsy, one will see 362,010 results for “upcycled” products. These are mostly small boutiques using unique one-of-a-kind pieces.

2. On-demand production

Made to measure, custom clothing is an old practice that is making a comeback with some retailers. EShakti, an online retailer based in India, creates made-to-order clothing based on simple patterns. The hope for this practice in the future could be reclaimed fabric that is produced on-demand in local, worker-owned cooperatives.

3. Reprocessing - reclaimed by manufacturer

Deadstock and used clothing can be reclaimed but it’s critical that they are sorted properly to enable them to either be reprocessed or reused. One of the pain points for this is sorting. Discarded clothing can be sorted much like donated clothing is today. When an article is donated to the processing center, speed is of utmost importance, and a quick inspection of each piece is given. Torn, stained or dirty items go to a discard bin and usable items are priced and hung up for sale, or sorted into bins based on their condition. The most valuable items are designer or name brands, in-season fashions, and anything with identifiable natural fabrics like wool and cotton, as well as higher quality poly blends.

It can be almost impossible to detect what type of fabric content is in any article of clothing by looking at it or even touching it. Sorters can typically identify most of these but some of the polys are harder to identify. Polyester is a problem because depending on the make-up of the blend, discarding the item means it will not biodegrade nor can it be burned without emitting toxic fumes.

It can be very difficult to tell the difference between natural and synthetic fabric content, and currently, the only way to tell is to examine the fiber through a a microscope which is time-intensive and impractical. However, research and experimental projects employ computer vision, machine learning, and microscopy to identify cells (Deep Learning on Microscopy Imaging Detecting Good, Bad and Ugly Cells with Deep Learning, 2019). Microscopic photography in combination with computer vision and machine learning is one of the promising possibilities for reclaiming and recycling textile fabrics at the production and manufacturing scale. Experimental research on the technical feasibility of using micro-geometry and surface reflection (Kampouris et al., n.d., 3) has been explored at the Department of Computing, Imperial College London with promising results and thus, with more robust sample sets and crowdsourced fabric samples that can be used to create libraries, it will soon be possible to overcome the biggest obstacles to solving the problem of processing reclaimed materials at scale.

But detecting the fabric content is theoretically possible using microphotography and machine learning. The example above shows the difference between cotton and polyester under a microscope. This technology is in its early research and development phase but is theoretically possible to do today. During the past year, I worked with a company that is using this technology to identify material content and defects in materials like clay, cement, and plastic. By using this same technology and training Convolutional neural networks (CNNs)—A type of neural network designed for interpreting visual data. one can distinguish and disambiguate the fabric content. No one is doing this today as the cost for the equipment is prohibitively expensive at this time, but costs for this equipment are becoming more and more attainable each year as the need increases. An experimental technology is of no use if there is no market demand or regulatory pressure for it, which is why focusing on creating consumer demand with a campaign centered around recognizing brands that adhere to emerging policy standards is important to expedite the changes needed.

Brand Design

This is where circular fashion comes in Circular fashion is an emerging industry term to for apparel that is designed, sourced, produced, and provided with the intention to be used and circulate responsibly and effectively in society for as long as possible in their most valuable form, and hereafter return safely to the biosphere when no longer of human use. Basically, designed from the beginning with a goal of making the end of life of the product as safe for our planet as possible.

The Circular Fashion Identity System
An item can be considered “Circular” if it complies with the upcoming Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulations. This means the item will be made of a to-be-determined percentage of content made of recycled fibers, free of hazardous substances, and produced with respect for social rights and the environment. This will likely mean the clothing will be composed of long-lasting fabrics that eventually are able to decompose with low off-gas emissions. In order to gain higher adoption for this program, the Circular fashion identity system also seeks to promote the practice of upcycling and purchasing used clothing as it conforms with the ecological goal of diverting the materials we already have from landfills, burning, and waterways.

Since Circular is not a brand itself, this creates challenges in how to express the value proposition by enhancing but not overshadowing the brand. Since circular can stand for new clothes or used fabric, copy and language are particularly important. For new clothing stressing the way an item is made, and being clear about the product being made to last beyond the initial buyer is important.

This global pandemic has inadvertently been a chance to do things differently; to experiment with new ways of thinking and prioritizing. It is also a time for reflecting on what past behaviors are no longer working.

We need to use the things we already have in a more sustainable way, for ourselves and our future generations.

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