What is Circular Fashion

As defined by Brismar, the concept of circular fashion is based on the main principles of circular economy and sustainable development. It relates to the fashion industry in a wider sense, that is, not only to fashion products but also to apparel, sportswear, outdoor wear, footwear, home textiles, and similar products. Circular fashion concerns the entire life cycle of a product, from design and sourcing to production, transportation, storage, marketing, and sale, as well as the user phase and the product’s end of life.

The following definition has been developed by Brismar; it was originally formulated in 2014 and refined in 2017, and it is the only existing coherent definition of circular fashion to date (2022).

Circular fashion can be defined as clothes, shoes, or accessories that are designed, sourced, produced, and provided intending 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. (Anna Brismar, Green Strategy, 2017)

In a circular model, products are designed and developed with the next use in mind. Less than 1% of clothing is recycled into new clothing. The best thing we can do is buy less and reuse more. If everyone bought just one used item instead of a new one this year, it would have a huge collective and positive impact on the planet.

Principles of Circular Fashion Economy

Green Strategy, an innovation-driven and research-based consulting firm specializing in sustainability and circularity issues of the fashion industry, has identified sixteen key principles to support and promote a more circular and sustainable fashion, apparel, and textile industry:

1. Design with a purpose
2. Design for longevity
3. Design for resource efficiency
4. Design for biodegradability
5. Design for recyclability
6. Source and produce locally
7. Source and produce without toxicity
8. Source and produce with efficiency
9. Source and produce with renewables
10. Source and produce with good ethics
11. Provide services to support longer life
12. Reuse, recycle or compost all remains
13. Collaborate well and widely

The first 13 principles are defined from a producer’s perspective, and the other three are relevant to the consumer’s perspective.

14. Use, wash and repair with care
15. Consider loan, rent, swap, or redesign instead of buying new
16. Buy quality as opposed to quantity

What are the advantages of Circular Fashion?

The four key advantages of circular fashion include:

• – Reduced dependency on imported raw materials.
• – Creation of eco-friendly industries and jobs.
• – Eco-friendly brands benefit from a better public image.
• – Reduction in environmental damage caused by resource extraction.

Right now, the fashion industry is linear which means you buy a shirt and when you get tired of it, it ends up in the trash…or donated which also usually heads to the landfill.

Circular fashion is all about making, well, a circle with your purchases and avoiding the need to create new materials, new garments, but instead using what is already circulating out there.

Whether moving to a circular fashion economy can tackle the impact of business models that rely on continual growth, ever increasing volumes of production and consumers’ desire for newness is under question.

• Brismar, Anna. 2017. What is Circular Fashion? Accessed via: https://greenstrategy.se/circular-fashion-definition/. Accessed on [date].