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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

Direct and indirect effects that increase revenues or the potential for new revenues, for example from new products, customer segments, partnerships or business models

Revenue Potential

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)

Operating networks and software that enable the exchange and broadcasting of information, such as entertainment and internet software, television, cable, satellite or radio broadcasting systems, and cellular, wireless and/or fixed-line telecommunications services

Software and Communications

Producing and providing leisure and personal products and services for consumers, such as cleaning products, sports equipment and toys, personal and beauty care products, as well as domestic and personal services such as caretaking, cleaning, hairdressing and other beauty treatment, funeral and related activities

Personal Products and Services

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

Fashion and Textiles

Providing products through sharing between consumers, customers, etc.

Peer to peer sharing

Allowing customers to alter and modify certain features of the product

Customisation

Connecting products and services into the internet of things to identify, enable and/or implement circular strategies (eg. effective resource use & logistics planning, circular business models & design)

Internet enabled, connected operations

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

Online platforms

Developing or utilising online marketplaces to enable the peer-to-peer exchange of products and services

Peer-to-peer online marketplaces

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

![Screen Shot 2024-10-21 at 16.53.12.png](https://goldilocks-images.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/Screen_Shot_2024_10_21_at_16_53_12_12858da6aa.png)

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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        Tulerie, a peer-to-peer closet rental app, is the latest company to join the sharing economy.
      
      
        Tulerie
      
    
  

  You know what’s nice? Wearing a beautiful, expensive dress to an important occasion.
You know what’s arguably even nicer? Paying a fraction of the price for said dress, shipping it off to someone else to be cleaned and stashed away, and not having to agonize over when you’ll wear it again, because you don’t own it.
This is the experience offered by the fashion rental economy, an industry on the rise as more shoppers turn to services that loan out clothes. 
The big fish in the fashion rental economy is Rent the Runway, the huge startup that’s raised more than $400 million in funding and has grown to 9 million members. But more companies are jumping into the space and expanding the parameters of what the fashion rental economy can look like.
One of the latest entrants to the field is Tulerie, a peer-to-peer, invitation-only fashion rental company. Tulerie allows users to rent clothing, shoes, and accessories to one another, with the app acting as a medium for borrowers and lenders. The company comes from Merri Smith and Violet Gross, two women who worked in fashion and finance, respectively, and believe there’s a huge opportunity in the fashion rental industry.
“I use Rent the Runway a lot, but I didn’t love the inventory, which is aimed at a more mass-market consumer,” Smith, who spent seven years working for Saks Fifth Avenue, tells me. “My friends and I are always borrowing each other’s clothes, and Violet and I realized there’s an untapped opportunity here. A business of renting friends’ clothes can have serious legs with the right infrastructure.”
Smith and Gross believe renting is the future of fashion. It represents an overall shift in shopping patterns — not just for clothes but across all categories. The rise of renting overlaps with the growth of the sharing economy, where digital companies like Uber, Lyft, Airbnb, and TaskRabbit have offered a new way of consumption: paying smaller amounts to borrow other people’s stuff.  
The thriving sharing economy is estimated to hit $40.2 billion by 2022. This is leading us to “the end of ownership,” which is how authors Aaron Perzanowski and Jason Schultz describe the result of shoppers eschewing personal property in the digital era in their book of the same name.
Fashion, in particular, is ripe for this shift, as it can be a viable way to feed into fashion trends without having to break the bank. 
The rise of renting coincides with the sharing economy
There are several reasons why shoppers prefer renting as a method of consumption. Research has found that there’s a growing affinity, especially among millennials, for spending money on experiences instead of stuff. In the “experience economy,” as CNBC refers to it, shoppers would prefer to save up money for trips and music festivals. 
Shoppers are also inundated with never-ending choice, and so there’s a freedom in not being wedded to one item. As sociologist Skyler Wang told the San Francisco Chronicle about the sharing economy, “A huge part has to do with the fact that we want change and access to different things. People don’t necessarily want to commit to just one thing anymore.”
There’s also the fact that today, shoppers — especially millennials — are hyper-aware of spending. It’s already been a decade since the financial crisis, but young consumers are still particularly spooked about the financial industry and are wary of credit cards. Instead, they make calculated decisions. And while there have been deal-savvy shoppers for decades, millennials today prefer secondhand over splurging on a name brand. Booming startups like the RealReal, Tradesy, ThredUp, and Poshmark have brought a certain slickness to the resale market, which is edging toward $41 billion. 
With this type of thinking when it comes to shopping, renting makes sense, and explains why RTR users love their subscriptions so much. As one RTR user told Racked last summer, “I look at dresses in my closet that I bought a few years ago and I’m like, ‘Wow, I can’t believe I spent $700 on a Diane von Furstenberg dress that I’ve only worn a few times.’ Why would I buy anything now when I can just rent it?”
  
  
    
    
      
        
  


  






      
    
    
  
  
    
      
        Tulerie allows users to rent clothing, shoes, and accessories to each other, with the app acting as a medium for borrowers and lenders. 
      
      
        Tulerie
      
    
  


But while the sharing economy has affected hotel room rentals, office space, homeownership, car sales, and cable subscriptions, it hasn’t affected fashion just yet. 
But shoppers have closets that are packed to the gills, thanks to fast fashion and the speedy pace of trend. This is something the Tulerie app, which launches Tuesday, aims to capitalize on. 
A Tulerie membership is free, but users must first be interviewed and accepted into the network. Once they are whitelisted, users can list clothes from Gross and Smith’s chosen list of designers, which are in line with luxury retailers like Net-a-Porter and Saks Fifth Avenue: classic luxury brands like Gucci, Celine, Prada, Louis Vuitton, emerging designers like Monse, Ulla Johnson, and Rosie Assoulin, and contemporary brands like Reformation, Tibi, and Zimmerman. 
A Tulerie algorithm will generate how much items should be rented for — about 5 percent of the retail price for a four-day rental, with the number increasing for 10- and 20-day rentals. The company will take an 18 percent commission on rentals and provide shipping envelopes and labels for the users. A white-glove service — where Tulerie will take charge of rentals, from photographing the merchandise to the shipping and cleaning — is also available for a commission of 40 percent.
Tulerie’s invitation-only status is supposed to make borrowers and lenders feel secure, Gross says: “We want you to feel like you are borrowing from a friend, and not that you are loaning your best dress out to some random stranger.” Payments are processed via Stripe, and if someone damages an item, they are liable for 200 percent of the retail value, a penalty Smith says is necessary to put lenders at ease. Borrowers and lenders can rate one another, and users will get kicked off the platform if they receive more than three negative reviews of damaged products. 
Gross and Smith believe Tulerie will take off because it’s trying to bring fashion to the sharing economy by commodifying the consumer’s closet. 
Is renting the future for fashion?
According to Coresight Research managing director Deborah Weinswig, renting in fashion is poised for growth since shoppers today want an “ever-changing, on-trend wardrobe.” Social media will also have a major impact, since Instagram affects the frequency of outfit-wearing. One RTR user told Racked last summer that she was opting to rent dresses for weddings specifically because of Instagram.
“If you go to a wedding and take photos in a dress you own, you probably can’t wear it again,” she said, “especially if the next wedding is in the same social circles, and especially when so many of the weddings I went to were all in the same season.”
  
  
    
    
      
        
  


  






      
    
    
  
  
    
      
        Armarium, a luxury rental company, buys directly from luxury brands. 
      
      
        Armarium
      
    
  



Trisha Gregory, whose three-year-old luxury rental company, Armarium, has nabbed investors like Tommy Hilfiger and Gilt co-founder Alexandra Wilkis Wilson, says it’s only a matter of time before brands start renting services of their own. She compares the landscape to the way e-commerce looked two decades ago, when brands were initially hesitant, and then eager, to work with digital partners like Net-a-Porter, and are now finally starting to roll out websites of their own. 
Armarium buys directly from some 80 luxury brands, including Alexander McQueen, Thom Browne, Proenza Schouler, Bottega Veneta, and Marchesa — and most of them have never worked with a rental company before. She says they are eager to work with Armarium, whose rentals start at $400, because “they are paying attention to how the sharing economy has affected other industries.”
Charles Gorra, the founder and CEO of the luxury handbag resale company Rebag, agrees fashion is headed this way. Last week, Rebag launched a new business model called Rebag Infinity, where shoppers who buy handbags from the company can return their item up to six months later and automatically get a 70 percent credit to buy a new bag. Gorra said the company offers this type of program because it’s what customers asked for.
“The question we constantly get from customers is, ‘How can I own a product for a shorter time without needing to fully invest it?’” he says. “Shoppers want access to luxury, but they’re finding that everlasting assets are wasteful. They want to be resourceful in the way they obtain a new handbag, and they also want another one six months later.”
Gorra is counting on this new program to be a huge success, but he also says Rebag could eventually get into luxury handbag rentals, since he too feels short-term ownership might be the future. 
“Aside from the Birkin or Chanel bags, which carry interest for generations, most of the bags you see that are exciting at fashion week will lose interest in six months,” he says. 
  
  
    
    
      
        
  


  






      
    
    
  
  
    
      
        Rebag, a luxury handbag resale company, lets users return bags within six months and get 70 percent back.
      
      
        Rebag
      
    
  


Even traditional retailers are trying to figure out ways to get involved with fashion rentals, especially in the ever-struggling mall brand category. This month, the mall staple Express debuted Express Style Trial, where shoppers can rent three pieces from the brand for $69.95 a month. This came on the heels of New York & Co. announcing that it, too, was experimenting with a rental subscription — NY&C Closet costs $49 a month for three items. Last year, Ann Taylor launched a service called Infinite Style, where customers could have access to unlimited clothes for $95 a month. Even the shoe giant DSW has said it would look into shoe rentals, although it hasn’t shared how it would deal with hygiene issues. 
Still, the fashion rental economy is niche. According to Forrester Research, only 6 percent of shoppers rent clothes. Rent the Runway CEO Jennifer Hyman has said that her future plans include putting “H&M and Zara out of business,” but fast fashion is still thriving and doesn’t show signs of slowing down anytime soon, even as RTR continues to roll out different subscription models.
Then again, there were doubts about how successful a business model like the sharing economy could even be; former Uber veteran Emil Michael was famously skeptical about the ride-hailing company in its early days. If Tulerie gains the type of network Smith and Gross hope for, it’s only a matter of time before renting from people’s closets become the norm. You can now live like a chic, rich French girl if you rent her Paris apartment on Airbnb; maybe one day you can wear her clothes too. 
Want more stories from The Goods by Vox? Sign up for our newsletter here.
  







 
Startup Delivers a Social App for Women to Share Their Prized Garments & Extend Ownership Value
 Tulerie (tulerie.com) officially emerged from beta testing to launch its innovative platform for the simple, enjoyable rental of premium women’s wear between owners and short-term borrowers. Tulerie is the sharing economy extended to women’s style, with a high-end focus that sets it apart from competitors.
Inspiration
Two years ago and hungry to dig into a new startup venture, Merri Smith and Violet Gross turned to their top passion: fashion. In their long list of brainstormed concepts, clothing rental wasn’t high on the list…and yet it wouldn’t go away. The more they learned about fashion production (beyond Merri’s eight years in the fashion business), the more intrigued they became with a two-sided mission: 1) combat the “fast fashion,” wear-it-once-and-toss trend spurred by social media and low prices at fast-fashion retailers and 2) give women access to the high-end garments that might lie outside their everyday budgets. By 2016, the concept that would become Tulerie had topped their list. “Most people can buy a few key investment pieces, but then they turn to consignment shops for luxury brands,” says Merri. “And even though consignment, it’s still really expensive. You’re going to pay 60% of the retail value for used pieces. So, if you’re buying something that retails at $5,000, it’s still going to be beyond most people’s reach. But if you’re able to borrow it for a temporary period, that experience suddenly becomes a lot more accessible.” In late 2016, Merri and Violet hired developers they trusted and spent 2017 bringing Tulerie to life. Early 2018 saw the start of beta testing. Scores of users provided feedback. Fulfillment processes were fine-tuned. And now, Tulerie is ready for the national spotlight. Details
Users download the Tulerie app from the Apple Store. As Merri notes, “Our goal is not to have 100,000 users in the next year. Our focus is quality users who understand the special opportunity to closet share and, more importantly, respect the garments the same way the owner would. We vet each potential user via a brief interview process.” Once approved, users can browse items
by type, size, color, and designer, as if shopping on an e-commerce site.
The app is fully integrated with shipping logistics and payment processing. Automated email reminders and push notifications keep both parties informed and on schedule. The integrated messenger feature makes conversations about fit a snap between owner and borrowers. Still, if there’s a problem with the garment upon receipt, borrowers have 24 hours to send it back for a refund. After the transaction finishes, the borrower and owner leave reviews about their experience. Tulerie has a three-strikes policy for users who return late or otherwise abuse the platform’s rules, but Merri and Violet have seen very few issues. A small part of the rental fee goes to Tulerie, but there are no other costs to participants. Unlike most competitors, Tulerie has no subscription tiers, club costs, or hidden fees.
Heart
Violet admits that the duo, like so many other women, loved to frequent fast fashion stores for one-time pieces. Then they learned what it takes to produce garments so cheaply and how toxic those clothes are to the environment after disposal.
“If you donate clothes to places like Goodwill, 80% of their items still end up in landfills,” says Violet. “They’re just throwing it in the trash, so you don’t have to. Of course, we know at some point, all clothes need to be disposed of, whether it’s quality or not. We just want people to do it the right way. That’s why we partnered with a company called RewearAble that collects any kind of textile and pulls the fabrics apart for recycling or reuse as garments or rags. Nothing they receive goes into landfills. We’re very proud to play a part in this reclamation.”
The company is now excited to start rounding out the Tulerie community and has some exciting new services waiting in the wings for late 2018, including same-day requests.
About Tulerie
Tulerie
takes the idea of sharing clothes and expands it beyond a woman’s inner circle. Formed by a highly curated community of women who believe in the craftsmanship of designer fashion, Tulerie members appreciate a current and stylish wardrobe but sympathize with the effects over-consumption has on our environment. This invitation-only program gives members the opportunity to expand their wardrobe by borrowing from other women. Conversely, owners can subsidize those special purchases by lending them to other members. Blending the best of AirBnB and Rent the Runway, Tulerie has created a unique business model for the socially conscious fashion enthusiast. Tulerie is live on the App Store. For more information, visit
www.tulerie.com and follow
@tulerie on Instagram. 
 


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Back in 2017, New York-based entrepreneur Violet Gross and Merri Smith, who had worked in marketing for luxury department store Saks Fifth Avenue, co-founded peer-to-peer (P2P) clothing rental app Tulerie, which described itself as a “closet sharing community”.The idea came about when a friend of Gross’s who works in fashion couldn’t always afford to dress the way she wanted to, and often found herself buying from the high street or borrowing from friends. After a while, the friend asked Gross if she could pay her for the items she lent her and, although Gross declined because she saw it as simply something friends do for one another, it made her think: “Why should you only borrow fashion from your friends?”Read more: 8 Things To Bear In Mind Before Making A Virtual Vintage PurchaseIn recent years, the global online clothing rental market has exploded and is projected to reach a value of more than $2bn by 2025. Alongside B2C (business-to-consumer) platforms such as Rent The Runway, which work with an inventory of clothing often focused on statement pieces, there has been a rise in P2P apps such as Tulerie as well as Dublin-based Nuw and UAE-based Designer-24, which allow users to rent the full spectrum of their wardrobes from each other.Tulerie, for instance, features items that retail from the low hundreds well into the thousands – think Chanel knitwear, Phoebe Philo-era Celine cabas totes, and monogrammed Dior wallets, to more accessible items such as Vetements x Champion hoodies and Cecilie Bahnsen cotton tops. While dresses are their number one rental item (closely followed by sweaters), “these are dresses you would wear to brunch or dinner, not necessarily a wedding dress,” Gross explains. “We really want people to expand their minds and think more ‘everyday’ than ‘special occasion'. It’s just another way to dress for a meeting or your friend’s birthday.”Establishing a community through clothingFor those seeking to join Tulerie, golden egg items include anything in bright colours, with current favourites being rolled Bottega Veneta pouches and anything Jacquemus. Equally important, though, is the community spirit. “We FaceTime-interview every single applicant,” says Gross. “It gives us an opportunity to say, ‘Listen, if you spill something or tear something, you're no longer in our community.’ You may have the most expensive closet and most expensive things, but if you aren’t going to treat items with respect, then you are not valuable to us.”

United States

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Tulerie is a peer-to-peer clothing and accessory rental platform.

Tulerie

<p><em>Tulerie </em>is a platform for peer-to-peer clothing rental. With their website and invitation-only app, it allows users to rent high-end clothing, shoes, and accessories from regular people’s wardrobes by providing a common platform to borrowers and lenders. They aim at building a community for experiencing latest fashion trends without having to indulge in buying fast fashion products and avoid wearing knock-off designer dresses when you can rent an authentic one.</p>