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Switching Gear Enabling Network

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Rethink 

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This collection has been built by a community of passionate researchers, students, and industry professionals as part of <a href="https://worldcirculartextilesday.com/" target="_blank">World Circular Textiles Day</a> (WCTD). 


World Circular Textiles Day takes place every year on 8th October.  Our vision is to galvanise the collective ambitions and goals of people, organisations and businesses to reach a fully circular textiles world by 2050. Our mission is to provide a framework for circularity stakeholders to develop and deliver a collaborative, evolving roadmap and to chart circularity’s momentum annually from the 8th of October until 2050.

What does fully circular by 2050 mean?
- Shared textile resources, in the form of products and raw materials, are kept in **continual circulation**.
- Virgin resources are **replaced with circular materials**.
- Dignity, equity, and equality for the **people** involved in all parts of the circular value chain.

We need to know where we stand today to chart how to get to 100% Circularity by 2050. What circular activity is currently happening in the textiles and apparel industry, and where in the world is it happening? The WCTD Collection aims to answer this question by building the world’s largest digital library of circular textiles case studies. 

World Circular Textiles Day is proud to be supported by our 2022-23 Circular Hero Partners:
[Lenzing](https://www.lenzing.com/), [Texaid](https://retailsolutions.texaid.com/), [Bank & Vogue](https://www.bankvogue.com/), [Usha yarns limited](https://ushayarns.com/), [The Conduit](https://www.theconduit.com/), and [Asia Pacific Rayon](https://www.aprayon.com/en/)

## Want to contribute to the WCTD Collection? Sign up and add your circular textiles activities.





World Circular Textiles Day

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Business case

Reduced use of virgin materials and/or an increase of the use of secondary and bio-based materials

Reduce Material Consumption (SDG12)

Minimise waste through diversion: Instead of sending waste to landfill, it is redirected into other industrial processes for handling, treatment, recycling, recovery, or reuse in various forms. 

Minimise waste through design: At the outset of a process of project, plan and design such that there is zero waste or minimal waste during production, use, and at end of life. 

Minimise Waste (SDG12)

Producing textile and leather products and processing them into apparel and accessories

Fashion and Textiles

Providing repair services or maintenance services for products or parts

Product maintenance, repair

Developing or utilising online platforms to enable circular economy opportunities through information, product or service offering

Online platforms

Other

VISION:
Products and services are designed for multiple use and material value retention, with maximum positive impact.

DETAIL: 
Imagine a time when…products flow via optimal collection and distribution streams into reusable and repairable product platforms. Reuse and access models are dominant, and products are designed for multiple recirculation before biodegrading (if designed to do so), or being broken down into reusable raw materials for production. People only consume what they need. Production and consumption wastes have been fully eliminated and multifunctional, season-less and timeless fashions are the norm, yet still fulfil our human need for expression and creativity without constraint. All business models, organisations, governments and citizens play a role in maintaining a healthy, functioning circular ecosystem.

Products and Services

Impacts

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Industries

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The principles of a circular economy concern designing out waste, regenerating ecosystems and keeping items in use. Decoupling the economy from material flows—improving the rate of resource productivity faster than the economic growth rate—is also a consistent guide. By evolving with the growing number of applications of circular economy principles, and consolidating these strategies across thematic areas, Circle Economy’s Key Elements Framework (KE) renders the elements of the circular economy salient and serves as a basis to derive contextual strategies and interventions. 


The Framework consists of:
- Core Elements: Activities directly handling product or material flows; and uniquely,
- Enabling Elements: those that remove obstacles for core actors.


Key elements of the circular economy

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Circle Economy's framework of strategies and activities that define the circular economy

Urban Opportunities

It is 2050.  Full systems change has taken place. This wouldn’t have been possible without the immediate action and radical steps taken from 2020 onwards. Many targets had to be identified in the early 2020s and achieved by 2030 to ensure that the 2050 goal happened in full. A sense of urgency, turbo stakeholder collaboration, supportive government regulation and clear, data driven targets enabled the mindsets and systems change needed to transform to a fully circular textiles ecosystem.

A circular economics model underpins what we have created. It reflects and supports a living organism made up of makers, users and restorers, interacting across vibrant and interconnected networks. Checks and balances, alongside transparency and accountability, ensure a healthy system. Financial, environmental, and social metrics have the purpose of serving communities and the planet. There is shared ownership of profit and loss – across all three metrics – throughout the value chain.

This is what we’ve achieved over the last 30 years:

WCTD Themes

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Based on the work of [Bocken et al. (2016)](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/309699661_Product_design_and_business_model_strategies_for_a_circular_economy), the Four Flows Framework serves as a simple framework for managing resource flows in a circular economy by using less (Narrow), using for longer (Slow), using again (Cycle), and using clean, regenerative materials and energy (Regenerate).

These different principles of circular economy can be applied to our socioeconomic metabolism: we can design stocks like buildings, infrastructure, machinery, and vehicles to be rich resource mines for the future, and design manufactured goods and consumables to be cycled and made regenerative. Furthermore, the focus must also centre on getting more value out of fewer materials. Achieving the aims of a circular economy—minimising material use, regenerating the Earth, and preventing material losses—can be done through these four key strategies mentioned above.

Source: Circle Economy. (2023). *[The circularity gap report 2023](https://www.circularity-gap.world/2023)* (p.22). Amsterdam: Circle Economy. 

Four Flows Framework

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    Hole in Wool or Cashmere       Taking Garment In      Great job! Great job, done quick and saved a few shirts!      Collar Turning      Top service excellent work and communication customer service      Order Now, Pay Later      Brilliant service. Efficient to use and a great fix. Will definitely be using Clothes Doctor again.      Hole in Wool or Cashmere      Moth-eaten cashmere repair Worth the money at about 20% of replacement cost      Order Now, Pay Later      Repair was invisible I had a hole in a navy cashmere jumper and it was repaired perfectly and is imperceptible from the outside      Hole in Wool or Cashmere      So happy I switched to these I have cleared and stopped using my laundry capsules. I'm so glad I switched to these more environment friendly options. My laundry smells good even without the fab con and I can now wash my cashmere and wool at home!      Eco Wash Laundry Set      Excellent service Sent my Moncler coat for a zip repair and it came back as good as new. Would 100% recommend and will definitely use again. Thank you.      Broken Zip      Excellent You have made my sweater wearable after mending nine moth holes. Highly recommended and I will use you again.      Hole in Wool or Cashmere      Excellent service First class service - wil definetly use again      De-pilling      Miracle workers! Thank you so so much! The item I had repaired honestly looks better now than it did when I bought it & you really can’t tell it was ever torn, I really could not be more grateful. Quick, fairly priced & absolutely great work/service carried out.      Hole or Tear in Denim, Cotton, Silk      Very satisfied I would like to say that I was very pleased with the high standard of service offered by Clothes Doctor. Not only was the work competitively priced but the standard of workmanship was very good as well. I would have no hesitation in recommending this service to those who need to have any garment mended. Thank you Clothes Doctor.      Hole or Tear in Denim, Cotton, Silk      Great Service Fantastic job on the tear in my trousers! Thanks!      Hole in Suit Fabric      Top Quality! Thank you so much for the fantastic job you made of my jacket and trousers, I could not be happier. I look forward to doing business again very soon.
All the best.      Narrowing Trouser Legs      Skirt alteration Good communication, a nice job and quick turnaround..
.would return! Thank you.      Taking Garment Out       Hole or Tear in Denim, Cotton, Silk      Great professional service friendly and very skilled staff brilliant will be going back to have a suit altered     Clothes Doctor      Absolutely brilliant service, friendly ladies, a pleasure to deal with. Not just a button/zip replacement service but a clothes resurrector     Clothes Doctor      Such lovely ladies! Thank you for the immediate attention. a very happy chap indeed.     Clothes Doctor      Great service. Professional, clear communication. Used initiative (spotted additional repair work required). Highly recommend.     Clothes Doctor      Faultless service and a great job done. Thank you clothes doctor!     Clothes Doctor      This is such an excellent service. Beautifully handled and beautifully done. Superb to know I can keep my favourite jeans going forever 👏👏👏     Clothes Doctor      Good quality repair only bettered by the customer friendly service!     Clothes Doctor      Always friendly and nothing is too much trouble. They have helped me out with ‘rush’ alterations too. The work is professional and never had any problems. Would highly recommend x     Clothes Doctor      Brilliant, the coat that was fixed is 70yrs old and now looks half that age     Clothes Doctor      Had sleeves shortened on a blazer and a coat. Communication on what needed to be done was excellent, and I am enjoying wearing clothes which fit properly and no-one could tell had been altered. Great job.      Shorten Sleeves      Excellent alteration of my jacket which allows me to wear it again.      Shorten Sleeves      Thank you so much for the excellent invisible mend of my velvet jacket - I'm delighted to have it returned to pristine condition.      Hole in Wool or Cashmere      Found this place via google search engine, sent my ski coat to get a new zip fitted , was so pleased with the result I rang them personally to thank the seamstress for do such a great job. Would highly recommend this company and have done to friends and family.      Broken Zip      As always, top notch customer service and quality alterations!     Clothes Doctor      Very good service. Old items came back as if they're brand new! Easy and convenient too.     Clothes Doctor      I have received superb service from clothes doctor. Next time when needed i'll definitely be back to clothes doctor only. Thank you, Muhammed     Clothes Doctor      Clothes Doctor seemed a very busy little unit in a charming little development very easy to get to. Lovely helpful people brilliant work quickly done at a reasonable price. Would recommend.     Clothes Doctor      I have used the clothes doctor a couple of times now and cannot fault their work or their service - it is nothing short of exceptional!     Clothes Doctor      Clothes Doctor      Brilliant company. Kept updated every step of the way, and as a university student having the whole process be as simple as drop off at Collect+ store and wait for return delivery was great. The damage to my clothing was just a torn seam but the repair is for all intents and purposes, invisible to the naked eye. Would recommend to anyone, especially someone like me that is out in the middle of no where with no local clothing repair store. 5/5.     Clothes Doctor      Good service and good price ,would recommend to anybody needing alterations. Support our UK small businesses     Clothes Doctor      Wonderful service, 5 stars! A speedy amendment made before an event, couldn't be happier. Will use for all my future alterations .     Clothes Doctor      My clothes were collected and returned seamlessly. I was very impressed by the service and the care that was taken in mending my clothes.     Clothes Doctor      Excellent job - and quick !     Clothes Doctor      Nothing but positives. A jacket with a burn hole in it, a woollen jumper with holes under the arms and a favourite pair of jeans with a broken fly zip - all mended within 7 days at a very reasonable price. Feels great to be able to repair clothes instead of throwing them away. Will 100% use them again.     Clothes Doctor      I have recently had a sports jacket altered. The communication was excellent and the work very good. The service is excellent value for a high quality job.      Taking Garment In   

For a good year or so, I’ve been deliberating over what to do with my favourite pair of shoes. Back in 2017, I stumbled across a buzzy French trainer brand with impressive eco-friendly credentials and decided to spend a good chunk of my student loan on a pair of all-white leather low-tops. Seeing them as an investment purchase, I was determined to keep them immaculate: every couple of weeks, I’d clean them inside and out with a delicate detergent and a little brush, wipe them down with a cloth, apply a leather cream, and hand-wash and replace the laces. Several months down the line, they were almost as white as when I bought them.However, even with plenty of TLC, the insoles eventually wore down, the lining began to tear and the paint on the leather started to peel. After a year of wear, they were pretty much tattered. In line with the brand’s eco-friendly ethos, I was hopeful they’d have a solution – perhaps an offer to repair them for a small fee, or at the very least recycle them in exchange for a discount. Sadly, I was told, there was nothing they could do. And so I bought a new pair.With a wave of sustainable fashion options entering the market, from brands such as Reformation and Everlane offering desirable pieces with a low carbon footprint, to luxury resale and rental platforms like Vestiaire, Hurr and By Rotation, the concept of making do with what you already own might not seem appealing. However, this very action could have the most significant impact on overturning the fast fashion model."Repairing our clothes is incredibly important," says Orsola de Castro, a sustainable fashion pioneer and the founder of the Fashion Revolution movement. "We know that lengthening the life of our clothing from one to two years decreases their carbon footprint by 24%, so it actually has an environmental effect. And obviously keeping clothes means mending them, as things inevitably break."It wasn’t so long ago that repairing clothes was an ingrained habit, when spending a slightly larger proportion of your income on what you wore and taking good care of it was the norm, and being able to sew a button or mend a hem was a basic life skill. But with the dawn of fast fashion, repairing clothes started to feel rather obsolete. Why spend the time and money to mend something when it’s cheaper, easier and far more thrilling to buy new?Alongside the carbon-intensive processes of producing and shipping fast fashion, how we dispose of our clothes carries a significant environmental impact. According to WRAP, around 300,000 tonnes of clothing – worth about £140 million – go to landfill every year in the UK alone. With organisations like the Ellen MacArthur Foundation urging us to move towards a circular fashion economy, putting an end to our current linear and highly unsustainable model, it’s clear that repairing, alongside reselling and renting, is an intrinsic part of the solution.The trend towards sustainable fashion may be in its infancy but there is in fact an old guard of brands for whom offering repairs and extending the wear of their products is stitched into their ethos. Most notable among these is perhaps Patagonia, which has shown a longstanding commitment to environmental activism and whose products are guaranteed for life. In 2016, the company launched its Worn Wear repair tours, travelling around European ski resorts offering free clothing repairs, whatever the brand. Meanwhile British heritage label Barbour is also known to reproof, repair and alter its flagship wax jackets in-house (antithetically to fast fashion, the older a Barbour, the greater its charm).A new breed of 'built-for-life' labels are tapping into millennial concerns around sustainability and engaging a younger, more urban audience, too. Scandi denim brand Nudie Jeans not only boasts solid ethical and environmentally friendly practices (using organic, fair trade and recycled materials, and paying factory workers a living wage) but also shows a genuine interest in the full life cycle of its products. Every pair of Nudie jeans, no matter when or where they were bought, comes with free repairs for life at the brand's in-store or mobile repair stations. And if you can’t make it to one of those, they’ll send you a free repair kit that includes denim patches, needles, yarn and an instruction booklet. When you no longer want your jeans, you can hand them back to Nudie, where they’re either resold or reworked into a new pair, in exchange for 20% off your next purchase.Yet brands like Nudie which offer a product that’s truly made for life are still few and far between. Even in the luxury sector, where you might think that spending a small fortune on an item would guarantee a lifetime of wear, repairs after the one- or two-year warranty period are hard to come by.This lack of aftercare even among high end brands inspired management consultant Vanessa Jacobs to launch The Restory in 2015. After she struggled to find a decent repair for a pair of designer boots, she decided to quit her job and set up an on-demand restoration service for shoes, handbags and leather goods. Her cofounders are Thaís Cipolletta, a leather expert with a master's in fashion artefact who heads up the atelier, and Emily John, who looks after branding and partnerships."Most brands might offer a hardware replacement or replace a strap, but no one had really continued to develop techniques to be able to offer aftercare," says Emily. "We’ve actually had to develop our own training programme because the techniques are quite unique to us." She describes the intricacies that go into restoring items, including sourcing hardware from brands or finding near-perfect matches, filling and smoothing scratches, and using a light box to ensure paint colours are identical. Where mending and caring for clothes can often seem tedious, sending items to The Restory and receiving them back almost as good as new, wrapped in tissue paper and packaged in a sleek branded box, feels like shopping your own wardrobe – far more treat than chore. "For us it was really important to create that experience and make you fall back in love with your clothes," says Emily. "You want to get them back and think, God, they look great! It brings back that feeling of when you first bought them."However, as with most repair services, enlisting the help of The Restory might only feel worth it for those more expensive or irreplaceable items. Restoring and repairing an old Hermès Birkin or Chanel 2.55 is bound to be a fraction of the cost of buying a new one; meanwhile the quote for my trainers was more than double their retail price. "I think that’s one of the biggest challenges," says Emily. "We’ve had to invest in building the technology so our pricing is still reflective of that. And we’re still researching and developing techniques to be able to offer… As we grow and we have a bigger library of items that we’ve worked on and we have better techniques that we’re constantly optimising, it should reduce the cost."While The Restory offers a niche and highly skilled service that’s currently tailored to luxury accessories, Clothes Doctor aims to encourage more of us to adopt a make do and mend approach to our entire wardrobe, whether that’s darning and de-pilling old jumpers, turning collars or shortening hems. The company was set up by former financier Lulu O’Connor after she tore her favourite coat and struggled to find a local mending service that was convenient and which she could trust to complete the job to a high standard. "I wanted to build a platform so that people could look after their clothes in a really easy, convenient and efficient way," says Lulu. "Not to mention the fact that, as I became more interested in the effect of fast fashion on the planet, I started to understand the magnitude of the problem, and the importance of looking after our clothes properly as an antidote to this."On the brand’s website, customers can choose from a range of competitively and transparently priced repair and alteration services, then have their clothes collected from their home and sent to the brand’s workshop in Cornwall, where they’re worked on by a team of specialist seamstresses before being returned within seven to 10 days. "We believe that every item of clothing is worth mending, and we aim to make it as easy as possible for our customers to choose to mend rather than throwing an item away," says Lulu. "We also try to convey the message that [repairing clothes] can also save you time and money in the long run, and reduce the need to buy more. We aim to spark a revolution where clothes are fixed rather than sent to landfill."With an increasing number of repair services available – Orsola flags a soon-to-launch site called Save Your Wardrobe, which aims to help users "make the most of [their] wardrobe", partnering with Clothes Doctor as well as eco-dry cleaners Blanc and donation service Thrift+ – there’s an opportunity to bring back a culture of caring for our clothes and gradually put an end to the 'buy, use, dispose' model. Still, encouraging people to repair ultimately hinges upon a fundamental change in our attitudes to buying clothes in the first place. "We need to get people to buy only what they love," says Orsola. "If you don’t buy 10 skirts but you buy one, and then you show the fast fashion brand that you’re actually prepared to take it to have it mended or mend it yourself, then you’re making your voice loud and clear."Amid the eco-friendly fashion buzz, there’s also the hope that retailers themselves will take responsibility not only for their production processes but also for where their clothes end up. "More encouragement is needed, but I think it’s going to be part of a brand’s best practice for the future," says Orsola. "The more we talk about it, the better it is." The creative director of the cool, sustainable French trainer brand has reassured me that his team is "200% working on it". Until then, my tattered leather low-tops stay put in a box at the back of my wardrobe, far away from landfill, with the hope of one day being revived and reworn.

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We believe that every new garment should be a friend for life. Browse through Our Services to see our prices, and let us know what you need by requesting a quote from our team.Join the movement and prevent your clothing from ending up in landfill. Just pop your garments in a jiffy bag and self ship to our team, or choose to get a CollectPlus label. We'll take good care of them!7-10 days later, your revived clothes will be delivered to the comfort of your home. Congrats! You've just joined the revolution to embrace a more sustainable wardrobe.We believe that every new garment should be a friend for life. Browse through Our Services to see our prices, and let us know what you need by requesting a quote from our team.Join the movement and prevent your clothing from ending up in landfill. If you're UK-based, just pop your garments in a jiffy bag and self ship to our team, or choose to get a CollectPlus label. We'll take good care of them!7-10 days later, your revived clothes will be delivered to the comfort of your home. Congrats! You've just joined the revolution to embrace a more sustainable wardrobe.MAKING CLOTHES LAST LONGER
    

 Clothes Doctor founded providing servicesWon The Good Web Guide award for our websiteSuccessful Crowdfunding raising £242,000 (target £200,000)Opened our drop-off point in Farringdon, LondonLaunched our clothing care product rangeOur founder Lulu went on Dragons Den!Launched our partnership with Net-A-PorterLaunched our product range in HarrodsLaunched our International businessClosed our London drop-off point due to Covid-19 Launched our At-Home Mending Tutorial SeriesLaunched our product range on Not On The High StreetLaunched our product range on Ocado

United Kingdom

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Clothes Doctor

<p>Clothes Doctor is an online repair and alteration service for garments founded in 2017. It was created as a way to have an accessible and reliable method to fixing clothes. Collection and shipping are free and the 'to-be-repaired-goods' don't need to be packed prior to collection. Goods are repaired/altered and returned to their user.</p>