C: Consumer waste

A coat made from recycled materials that costs half as much as it would be if it had been made from virgin wool. That’s the first shwop coat by Marks & Spencer. The limited edition coat, which hit the stores in October 2012, is the first tangible result of Marks & Spencer’s shwopping initiative. With shwopping, the British retailer encourages customers to donate an old item of clothing to charity every time they come into the store to buy something new. In collaboration with Oxfam and Italian fibre manufacturers, Marks & Spencer upcycles these donations into new must-haves.

It turns out that Marks & Spencer receives lots of unwanted clothes that are suitable for recycling: in the first six months of the shwopping initiative, a staggering one million clothes have been donated. That’s no mean feat: in the United Kingdom, approximately 1 billion clothes end up as landfill each year.

Shwopping may sound revolutionary, but there are several other innovative clothing companies embracing recycling. Retailers like Eileen Fisher and Patagonia have been accepting returns of their worn products for quite some time. Fisher resells them in her Green Eileen retail store, while Patagonia recycles theirs into new products.

Patagonia is known for its imaginative approach to sustainability in fashion. It’s famous ‘Don’t buy this jacket’ campaign called upon consumers to think twice before buying something new. Advertising a fleece jacket made from 60% recycled polyester, Patagonia wrote: ‘We ask you to buy less and to reflect before you spend a dime on this jacket or anything else.’ Now that’s a remarkable challenge posed by a company that’s been among the most sustainable brands in the fashion world for many years. Marks & Spencer still have a long way to go, I’d say.

L: Lease a jeans

The circular economy, cradle to cradle, upcycling. They’re all sustainability ideas that the average fashion consumer might find difficult to grasp. Enter the fashion concept launched by MudJeans. Presented as the world’s first rental denim, MudJeans’ lease a jeans concept makes the idea of a circular economy both tangible and affordable.

By signing a lease contract and paying a first installment, MudJeans customers embrace a new, sustainable way of using fashion. After 12 months, the jeans can be sent back to MudJeans, which will take care of recycling or upcycling each garment. The consumer will receive a discount on a new pair of jeans, which can be either be rented or bought.

According to MudJeans CEO Bert van Son, the lease a jeans concept aims to make sustainable fashion affordable for consumers while at the same time stimulating recycling within the fashion industry.

MudJeans is a Dutch casual wear label that has embraced sustainability as part of their business practices since their start in 2007. MudJeans uses organic, fair trade cotton and other sustainable fabrics (such as recycled PET) and works together with partners in Italy to re-use and upcycle all denim. For the lease a jeans collection, which started off with four types of jeans - two for women and two for men - MudJeans has designed for recycling, for instance by avoiding the use of any leather labels and by choosing organic cotton yarns.

MudJeans has even thought of denim lovers who tend to grow attached to their favorite pair of jeans. The lease a jeans concept allows them to extend the lease contract for many months more. In addition, the MudJeans webstore also includes items that can simply be bought instead of leased.

U: Upcycling

Using yesterday’s clothes to make the fashion of the future. That’s one of the slogans promoting the TV series Dresscue me. The reality series follows vintage guru Shareen Mitchell in her daily search for exquisite dresses made from discarded clothing.

It’s about the lady, not the dress, is one of Mitchell’s basic principles. The diva, who owns stores in New York and Los Angeles, is convinced that clothing can make women feel more positive about themselves. By finding them the perfect dress, Mitchell and her staff do more than find an answer to the vexing question what to wear. They make their customers feel pretty, glamorous and/or sexy. If we succeed in making women feel beautiful, we can transform their lives, says Shareen in one of the episodes of Dresscue me, which has been aired worldwide.

Noble as this may sound, it’s a shame that Shareen Mitchell seldom talks about the environmental benefits of upcycled dresses. While Dresscue me doesn’t fail to register Shareen and her assistants going through numerous piles of discarded clothing, we never hear about things like our throwaway culture, landfill and recycling. That seems like a missed opportunity: needless to say, re-using secondhand clothes to create new must-haves provides ample benefits for the environments. And as she turns local stock into unique, handmade garments designed to last many years, Mitchell is a particularly good role model for the upcycling trend.

Maybe one of Dresscue me’s motto’s (‘Saving women one dress at a time’) is in serious need for an update? Isn’t ‘Saving the planet one dress at a time’ is just as much as a home truth? Or maybe it’s time for a TV series documenting the daily business of outspokenly green upcycling companies.