Upcycling between circular economy and uniqueness

Covid-19 has had a very strong economic impact on the fashion world.

According to a report published by McKinsey, with stores closed, sales plummeted by 70/80% offline and 30/40% online, causing overstocking in warehouses. Also according to this report, the value of excess inventory for the spring/summer 2020 season is between 140 and 160 billion dollars worldwide (between 45 and 60 billion in Europe alone), more than double the normal value.

This has forced many companies to reinvent themselves in order to manage excess stock, finding a solution with Upcycling.

Upcycling is an innovative economic strategy which consists in making clothes and accessories using waste materials, therefore unsold clothes, warehouse stock, vintage pieces or even unused fabrics and raw materials, giving life to a garment that is always one of a kind.

Difference between upcycling and recycling

“Recycling, I call it down-cycling. They destroy bricks, they destroy everything. What we need is up-cycling, thanks to which old products are given more value, not less.”

(R. Pilz, German engineer, 1994).

As can be seen from the phrase of the German engineer R. Pilz (the first time the term Upcycling is used), Upcycling and Recycling have very different characteristics.

Recycling consists in collecting and processing materials that have been thrown away to make them new products, reducing pollution, the environmental impact of waste and wasting less energy, but obtaining a final quality equivalent or lower than that of the initial product.

Upcycling, on the other hand, reuses materials that have not yet been thrown away to create new products with higher quality.

The advantages of upcycling

But let's go into a little more detail. What are the advantages of Upcycling?

1. Avoid waste: as mentioned above, especially in the last year, in the fashion world it is very easy for garments to be wasted, forgotten in the warehouse or thrown away because they are unsold. Thanks to Upcycling, clothing can be given a second life, significantly reducing the environmental impact of the textile industry.
2. Uniqueness: due to fast fashion, clothing items have always been produced in large stocks, while since the practice of Upcycling has been used, unique and highly valuable pieces have been created.
3. Savings: in addition to reducing the amount of waste, Upcycling allows brands to save money, water, electricity and raw materials.

The "push" from the market

Upcycling is no longer just a voluntary economic strategy, but is becoming a necessity.

In France, for example, the anti-waste law has been approved, which in addition to halving plastic consumption, informing consumers about its environmental impact and making manufacturers more responsible, will prohibit businesses from throwing away unsold products from 2022 , forcing them to find a way to reuse them without creating any kind of waste.

So fashion companies are somehow forced to use the upcycling technique, because they will no longer be able to get rid of unused garments.

Upcycling in the luxury sector

Although Upcycling was born as a widespread practice among small brands, it took very little time to reach the big luxury houses.

The economic loss caused by the pandemic has created the need to reuse the remaining stock, and many designers and luxury fashion houses have decided to do it in a big way.

For example, for many years Kering has been collaborating with NGOs that work to collect and reuse waste material, and in 2020, thanks to its collaboration with ECONYL (a company that produces Nylon by reusing pieces of plastic), it managed to launch Gucci Off the Grid, the first collection of the Gucci brand that uses only circular designs.

Fashion is very often love for vintage, which is why many luxury fashion houses use upcycling to modernize old collections. Recicla, by Maison Margiela for example, is a collection inspired by the Replica line launched in 1994.

Sustainability in Luxury fashion is possible, and Stella McCartney proves it, who in 2020 had to rework her brand, publishing a manifesto, "A to Z", in which she talks about the environmental problems caused by the industry and states that Upcycling it's the future of fashion.

Examples of well-known fashion brands that practice upcycling

As mentioned in the previous paragraph, some luxury brands are launching collections entirely created with Upcycling, an example is Gucci Off the Grid by Gucci, which consists of unisex garments and accessories made with bio, recycled and biodegradable materials (for example with ECONYL Nylon, using recycled and recyclable packaging).

Gucci Off the Grid is part of a larger initiative, Gucci Circular Lines, which serves the brand to fully explore all possible regenerated fabrics.

Another example of a luxury brand that practices Upcycling is Miu Miu, which has launched the Upcycled collection, a capsule of 80 unique models, built from garments that come from the 30s to the 80s, selected from vintage stores around the world. These garments can be found in 9 boutiques around the world, and will remain one of a kind forever.

Conclusions

The fashion world is constantly evolving, and the pandemic has speeded up a change already underway.

Moving in time allows both to limit operational risks and to obtain a competitive advantage, with the consequent economic benefits, compared to companies that have not yet adapted to the new demands from the market.