Apparel Brands Drive Circular Fashion Future with Recyclable, Renewable Fabrics

Pangaia and Filippa K are the latest to unveil collaborations with circular textile innovators — fueling progress toward closing the loop on fabric waste.

Published 1 year ago | About a 6 minute read

Image: Pangaia

Pangaia, Evrnu release world’s first Nucycl® jacket made entirely from textile waste

Image credit: Pangaia

Today, materials-science company Pangaia releases its latest innovation through Pangaia Lab. Made from textile innovator Evrnu’s NuCycl®, the ‘Renu’ jacket is Pangaia’s first denim product made entirely from cotton textile waste — marking a pivotal moment in the brand’s material innovation journey.

The Evrnu partnership is the latest in a string of collaborations through which Pangaia has given textile waste new life: In 2021, it released its Plnt Fiber™ and Frut Fiber™ blends — fleece-like fabrics derived from plant and agricultural waste — which have the look and feel of cotton, without the cotton; and in 2022, its Reclaim Capsule featured sweatshirts and sweatpants made from textile waste; and its Re-color collection used Recycrom™ circular dye technology to transform Pangaia offcut materials into colored powder dyestuﬀs for new garments.

The partnership with Evrnu was born through a mutual mission to find replacements for resource-intensive fibers such as cotton, and to harness the value of materials already in circulation — rather than virgin fossil-fuel or animal-derived fibers. The Renu jacket marks the world’s first denim product entirely made from NuCycl.

“Evrnu represents the very best of innovation in the space of recycled fibers,” says Dr. Amanda Parkes, Pangaia’s Chief Innovation Officer. “We have been on a long journey together as partners and we are delighted to be bringing out our first product together, demonstrating the extraordinary potential for superior quality from recycling technologies.”

Textile innovator Evrnu has invented polymer-regeneration technologies that address one of the biggest environmental challenges of our time: textile waste. With NuCycl — named one of TIME's Best Inventions of 2022 — pre- and post-consumer textile waste is broken down and transformed into a pristine new, high-performance fiber for creating new premium textile products. NuCycl fiber is up to 4 times stronger than other cellulosic fibers — including cotton and most manmade cellulosic fibers (MMCF) — and can be recycled up to 5 times without loss in performance or quality. Using NuCycl helps divert textile waste away from landfill and incineration and is poised to reduce the industry’s reliance on cotton, MMCF, nylon and polyester.

Products made with NuCycl can be disassembled to the molecular level and regenerated multiple times into new clothing, home and industrial textiles with extraordinary performance and environmental advantages. The technology uses repolymerization to convert the original fiber molecules into new, high-performing, renewable fibers. Evrnu says even the toughest type of post-consumer textile waste (which tend to be blends of natural and synthetic fibers such as polyester) can be turned into new materials with NuCycl. And unlike mechanically recycled cotton, NuCycl does not need to be blended with any virgin fiber and allows more recycling cycles — making it a significantly less resource-intensive alternative to cotton or polyester.

“We are thrilled to partner with Pangaia, which shares our drive to unlock the future of materials and technology for the fashion industry,” says Evrnu CEO & co-founder Stacy Flynn. “Our mission is to help brands create clothing out of recycled materials that are not only of the highest quality but can also continue to be recycled. We are delighted by the growing market demand for NuCycl.”

The Renu jacket is part of Pangaia’s approach to the modern wardrobe; with an oversized fit, it is intended to be styled over a hoodie.

Starting February 16th, the Renu jacket will be available exclusively on Pangaia.com.

Filippa K to premiere game-changing recycled fabric of its own this fall

The Filippa K store in Copenhagen | Image credit: Filippa K

Meanwhile, Swedish ‘sensual minimalism’ brand Filippa K announced this week it will be the first fashion brand to premiere a new, recycled and renewable material — through a collaboration with Swedish forest group Södra; global fiber producer Lenzing; and Riopele, one of the oldest textile manufacturers in Portugal. The partnership — the results of which will be seen in its Spring/Summer 2024 collection this fall — is the latest in Filippa K’s ongoing commitment to drive uptake of circular solutions in fashion.

Made from a combination of textile waste and wood cellulose, the revolutionary pilot fiber is a product of Södra’s OnceMore® fiber and Refibra™ technology from Lenzing – the company behind the ubiquitous wood-based fabric, Tencel™.

“We are so excited to be the first brand developing products in the new textile based on OnceMore pulp using Lenzing’s Refibra technology, supported by Riopele’s creative expertise in yarn and fabric production,” says Jodi Everding, VP of Sustainability at Filippa K. “We are not in this alone — collaboration is an essential step in sustainable transformation of the industry. It’s important to us at Filippa K to join forces with like-minded partners who are innovators in their own fields.”

“One company alone can’t solve the pressing issue of textile waste; it is proactive partnerships like this that enable us to move forward and bring about real systemic change,” says Robert van de Kerkhof, Chief Commercial Officer, Fibre at Lenzing Group. “We’re working hard to make our industries even more sustainable and to drive the transformation of the textile business model from linear to circular. Further efforts from the entire industry are needed for this transformation to take place.”

More information about this collaboration, fiber and garments will follow in the coming months on www.filippa-k.com.

The fashion industry is abuzz with collaborations and initiatives aimed at reducing its climate and environmental impacts — much of which is tied to both the production of textiles and their waste. On the materials front, while Tencel fibers, for example, are certified as compostable and biodegradable, they’re still wood-based — which means felling trees. At COP27 in November, fashion giants including H&M, Inditex, Stella McCartney and Kering collectively committed to purchase over a half-million tonnes of low-carbon, low-footprint alternative fibers to support the protection of the world’s vital forests and ecosystems and reduce forest degradation pressures from fashion supply chains. While industry waits for supply of these next-generation fibers to be able to meet growing demand, innovations such as garments and shoes made from captured carbon; scaling of biological recycling capabilities for blended textiles by brands including Patagonia, Puma and Stella McCartney; and 37.5 Technology’s Enhanced Biodegradation additive — which accelerates the biodegradation of synthetic textiles in landfills — hold promise for a climate-friendlier industry.