The Brazilian sportswear factory T.Christina has developed, in collaboration with COMAS (upcycling services), an upcycled textile that allows reusing the cutting waste generated in the cutting process. The developed fabric does not require new technologies since it is made by factory manufacturers using a flat seam machine, common in the production of sportswear.

In the fashion industry, the textile waste generated during the cutting process can represent up to 20% of the textile destined for the manufacture of garments. This not only means a financial loss, but also a waste of the natural resources used in the production of the textile. In addition, the accumulation of solid textile waste is associated with the increase in GHG emissions, due to decomposition and incineration, the leaching of toxic chemicals, and the saturation of the territory occupied by landfills, among others.

To reduce textile waste, the T.Christina factory has created an innovation studio that systematizes the creation of fabrics made from materials normally discarded by conventional production methods. The process was developed in collaboration with designer Agustina Comas (winner of the Fashion Futures award from the C&A Institute Brazil, in the Innovation and Technology category), which consists of analyzing the shapes of the cutting waste and designing a pattern from them. Each piece of cut fabric is then sewed together, creating the pattern that repeats itself indefinitely to make a continuous textile. This upcycling process was originally created in 2016 by Agustina Comas from COMAS. Today, together with the industrial group T.Christina, they are developing it at scale.

This method of creating textiles allows pre-consumer materials to be reused, with all the benefits of a new fabric. In this way, the production of new knits is avoided, which represents about 24% of the carbon footprint of the textile and fashion industry, according to the report “Roadmap to net zero”, published in 2021 by the Apparel Impact Institute. In addition, the wet processes necessary for dyeing and treating textiles are eliminated. In general, the reuse of textiles reduces the impact of production more than recycling, since it consumes less energy and resources. Sportswear textiles are usually made up of mixtures of different materials, many of which contain elastane, which makes it difficult to recycle waste into a high-quality textile. This is why the reuse of textiles could be an attractive alternative for the sportswear industry.

 The cutting scraps are sewed with a flat seam machine, commonly found in sportswear factories. This enables the manufacture of the textile to be carried out within the factory since it is not necessary to learn new sewing techniques.

 Since September 2021, T.Christina's project has shown that it is possible to reuse textile waste at scale by generating more than 500 meters of upcycled quality fabrics (with the resistance that sportswear requires) that are sold in rolls to make garments for its own sportswear brand RANI and others.

Image courtesy of COMAS and T.Christina . Photographer: Patricia Ikeda.

Source: https://www.ranifit.com.br/rani-comas-upcycling