Tanvi Munjal
On runways from London to Delhi, “sustainable” has quietly graduated from footnote to headline.
For years, recycled and upcycled fashion lived in a niche corner of the industry: worthy, small-batch, and slightly earnest. Not anymore. Circularity is now written into fashion week rulebooks, multi-hundred-million-euro supply contracts, and government legislation.
The Runway Verdict
*Tolu Coker’s SS25 collection ‘Olapeju’
*Marine Serre Upcycled SS20 Collection
*Gabriela Hearst Autumn Winter 2020 Collection
*Miu Miu Upcycled 2026
The clearest signal: London Fashion Week adopted Copenhagen Fashion Week’s sustainability requirements, marking a shift from promises to accountability as sustainability standards became mandatory for participation.
Designers leading the shift:
- Tolu Coker: Central Saint Martins graduate whose work frequently incorporates upcycled and recycled fabrics, reflecting both environmental consciousness and personal history.
- Moschino and Gabriela Hearst: using upcycled and deadstock fabrics, giving new life to existing materials on the runway.
- Miu Miu: its ongoing Upcycled line reworks vintage cotton shirts and khaki chinos into hand-finished, one-of-a-kind pieces.
- Marine Serre: built an entire aesthetic around upcycling and deadstock, repurposing household items and industrial fabrics through zero-waste approaches.
- Stella McCartney: luxury’s reference point for circularity, using organic and recycled materials, including pieces made from industrial waste.
Quick glossary: Upcycling turns waste materials into higher-value new garments with minimal processing. Recycling (fiber-to-fiber) breaks materials down to the fiber level and rebuilds them into new yarn.
Even resale is walking the catwalk: eBay has brought pre-loved fashion to the runway, and the secondhand market is projected to reach $350 billion by 2028.
Sidebar: The Sorting Problem, Solved by Machines
Everyone agrees that recycled fiber works. The real bottleneck has always been sorting: separating a mountain of mixed, dirty, blended textiles into clean, single-fiber streams that recyclers can actually use. That bottleneck is now being automated.
| Tech | What It Does | Numbers |
| Near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy | Scans a garment’s fiber “fingerprint” in 1–2 seconds | Core of most commercial sorting lines today |
| AI / computer vision (CNN models) | Classifies fiber type, color, contamination | 95–98% accuracy identifying 13+ fiber types in under 2 seconds per garment |
| Robotics | Physically separates and routes sorted items | Cuts manual labor needs by 70–80% |
| Combined effect | Overall system efficiency | Reduces total recycling cost by 25–35% |
Waste-management giant WM has opened one of the first U.S. facilities using robotics and near-infrared sensors for textile sorting in South Carolina. In France, sorting company PICVISA is upgrading its platform this year specifically to keep pace with tightening EU verified-composition requirements for recycled fiber. Forecasts suggest 60%+ of commercial textile recycling facilities will use AI-driven sorting by 2030, up from under 5% in 2023. This is the unglamorous infrastructure that decides whether all that runway rhetoric about recycled fiber actually has enough clean material to work with.
India’s Circular Front Row
India’s textile heritage never treated repair and reuse as novel. It is now catching up to formal industrial recognition.
| Brand | What They Do | Key Detail |
| Doodlage (Delhi) | Intercepts industrial waste — cutting scraps, deadstock, bolt-end remnants | Presented a 2023 all-waste collection at the FDCI/UN Circular Design Challenge, Lakmé Fashion Week |
| IRO IRO (Jaipur) | Circular design rooted in indigenous craft | Finalist, same Lakmé Fashion Week challenge |
| Ka-Sha | “Heart To Haat” — turns leftover fabric into new garments | Started 2012 as internal waste management, now industry-facing |
| Dibella India (Bengaluru) | Regenerative and recycled material apparel | European HQ in Germany |
| Pratibha Syntex (Indore) | Vertically integrated knitted textiles | Links 35,000 farmers, 10,000 workers across 20+ countries |
Doodlage’s model matters because it addresses a hard supply-chain fact: factories routinely discard up to 25% of raw textiles from the cutting floor — waste that’s clean, sorted, and immediately usable.
*Doodlage Upcycled Styles
The Hardware Behind the Trend
None of the runway momentum matters commercially without the chemistry happening in recycling plants. 2026 is being called textile recycling’s “second wind” after a rough 2023–24.
Who’s doing what:
- Circulose (Sweden, formerly Renewcell): filed for bankruptcy in 2024, now restarting under owner Altor; 60,000-tonne annual capacity; supplies H&M, Levi’s, Ganni, COS.
- Infinited Fiber (Finland): taking a cautious path, starting with a 200-tonne pilot rather than its original large facility; holds a €100 million supply deal with Inditex for 30% of future Infinna output.
- Ambercycle (Los Angeles): chemical recycling of polyester, scaled commercially; partners include Inditex, Arc’teryx, Reformation, Ganni; its Cycora fiber expands into Gap’s Athleta starting in 2026.
- Circ (US): separates cotton and polyester from blended waste; backed by Breakthrough Energy, Inditex, Patagonia.
India’s entry into the infrastructure race:
- Birla Cellulose (Aditya Birla Group): 5-year deal to buy up to 5,000 tonnes/year of Circ’s recycled pulp from its France facility.
- Filatex India (via subsidiary Ecosis Ltd.): building a ₹300 crore textile-to-textile recycling facility in Dahej, Gujarat.
The bigger number: the industry needs a projected $5–7 billion in capital investment by 2026 to shift circularity from niche collections to mainstream production, targeting 80% circularity by 2030, against roughly 92 million tonnes of textile waste generated globally each year.
*Stella McCartney’s FEVVERS, World-first, plant-based feather alternative
Policy Is Forcing the Pace
Regulation has stopped being background noise.
- EU Waste Framework Directive (in force 16 Oct 2025): mandates Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) for textiles. Brands, not municipalities, fund the collection and recycling of what they sell. Fees are “eco-modulated”: better durability and recyclability mean lower fees. National schemes must be operational by roughly 2027–2028.
- Germany: proposed 70% collection, 95% recovery, and 85% recycling targets.
- France: Refashion scheme, running since 2007, already processes 700,000+ tonnes annually; a template for the rest of the EU.
- California SB 707: textile producers must join an approved Producer Responsibility Organisation by July 2026; penalties up to $10,000 per day for non-compliance.
Does the Wardrobe Actually Want This?
Consumer appetite is real, but uneven:
- 73% of Millennials say they’re willing to pay more for sustainable brands.
- 75% of Gen Z bought pre-owned clothing specifically to reduce consumption.
- But 50% of American consumers have declined an eco-friendly purchase over cost.
- A meaningful share of shoppers simply distrust brands’ sustainability claims — scepticism the EU is now legislating against directly, banning vague “eco” marketing claims from later this year.
The Shape of What’s Next
The throughline across runway, lab, and legislature is the same: recycled and upcycled fashion is being pulled out of its artisanal box and into industrial infrastructure, investment contracts, and compliance calendars. Designers such as Coker, Serre, Hearst, and Doodlage’s Tula and Arora aren’t proving an exception anymore—they are previewing what a compliant, industrially scaled fashion industry will be required to look like within the next two to three years.
* All brand and product images belong to their respective owners (Tolu Coker, Marine Serre, Miu Miu, etc.). Used here for editorial purposes only.
References
- British Fashion Council & Copenhagen Fashion Week. (2025). London Fashion Week adopts sustainability requirements. Vogue. https://www.vogue.com/article/london-fashion-week-adopts-sustainability-requirements-british-fashion-council-copenhagen-fashion-week
- Lakmé Fashion Week & FDCI. Sustainability Highlights. https://lakmefashionweek.co.in/home/sustainability_highlights
- European Parliament. (2025). EU rules on textile waste and Extended Producer Responsibility. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/topics/en/article/20201208STO93327/fast-fashion-eu-laws-for-sustainable-textile-consumption
- Tolu Coker. Official site & London Fashion Week profile. https://londonfashionweek.co.uk/designers/tolu-coker
- Miu Miu Upcycled collections. https://www.miumiu.com/ww/en/collections/miu-miu-upcycled/c/10515EU
- Marine Serre Sustainability. https://www.marineserre.com/en/core/sustainability
- Stella McCartney Sustainability. https://www.stellamccartney.com/us/en/sustainability/sustainability.html
- eBay & ThredUp Resale Reports (2024–2025). Secondhand market projections. (Widely cited in Fashion Dive, The Guardian, etc.)
- Waste Management (WM) Textile Sorting Facility. Coverage in Waste Dive. https://www.wastedive.com/news/us-textile-recycling-sorting-ai-epr-wm-refiberd-goodwill/815422/
- PICVISA Textile Sorting Technology. https://picvisa.com/waste/textile/
- Doodlage & Circular Design Challenge. Lakmé Fashion Week / FDCI participation (2023). https://lakmefashionweek.co.in/home/sustainability_highlights
- IRO IRO & Ka-Sha initiatives. Brand sites and Lakmé coverage.
- Dibella India. https://www.dibellaindia.com/
- Pratibha Syntex. Company statements on farmer & worker scale.
- Circulose (formerly Renewcell). Restart updates via Business of Fashion. https://www.businessoffashion.com/news/sustainability/exclusive-textile-recycler-circulose-is-restarting-its-recycling-plant/
- Ambercycle Cycora & partnerships (Gap Athleta, Inditex). https://www.ambercycle.com/
- Circ & Birla Cellulose partnership. Fashion for Good & company announcements.
- Filatex India / Ecosis. Company & project updates (Dahej facility).
- California SB 707 (Textile EPR). Legislative text & Fashion Dive coverage.
- EU Green Claims / Empowering Consumers Directive. European Commission. https://environment.ec.europa.eu/topics/circular-economy-topics/green-claims_en
