Circular fashion: why it is not yet a reality
In recent years, the industry has embraced the term circular fashion, turning it into a buzzword used across collections, marketing campaigns, and retail spaces. Yet when we move past the headlines and examine how the fashion system truly works, the picture changes.
Today, circular fashion remains more promise than practice
a gap that continues to challenge fashion sustainability at every level.
Fashion has long relied on a linear model: production, distribution, consumption, disposal.
Circularity requires a deep systemic transformation—from material engineering to logistics, from life-cycle planning to end-of-life management. Merely “recycling” a garment does not make a system sustainable.
The entire cycle must be designed to be truly closed, scalable, and compatible with sustainable textiles.
Fashion academia embraces it, but the industry struggles
Positive examples exist, especially in experimental and educational contexts.
Initiatives such as the sustainable fashion atelier within Cittadellarte – Fondazione Pistoletto demonstrate how ethics can return to the center of garment creation, emphasizing durability, personalization, and responsible design.
But transitioning into industrial production remains challenging. Where fashion becomes industry—with volumes, deadlines, and cost structures—circularity struggles to find space. One key element is still missing: materials designed to be circular from the start, not adapted later.
Why fashion is not yet circular
Several real—and often unspoken—obstacles continue to slow progress toward true circularity:
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Materials are not designed for recycling:
Many fibers are blended or treated in ways that make separation and reuse difficult.
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There is no structured post-consumer supply chain:
Collection, sorting, and reintegration into production cycles remain fragmented or limited to pilot initiatives.
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Fast fashion is a systemic barrier:
Its speed and low cost are incompatible with a model that requires time, quality, and accountability.
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Greenwashing confuses the market:
Minor actions are frequently presented as radical transformations, weakening consumer trust in genuinely sustainable projects and undermining broader fashion sustainability goals.
Infibrity: a concrete case of circular design
In the textile sector, some have chosen to rethink the model starting from the foundation: the technical design of the material itself.
Infibrity, the technology developed by Pratrivero Spa, enables a textile product to be fully recyclable, traceable at every stage, and ready to re-enter the production cycle after use.
It is not a laboratory experiment or a capsule collection—it is industrial technology designed for real-world applications in furnishing, outdoor, contract, and accessories.
Infibrity demonstrates that circularity is not an abstract ideal but the result of precise design choices, industrial processes, and cultural alignment.
Conclusion: We Need Fewer Slogans and More Infrastructure
As long as circular fashion remains more storytelling than infrastructure, achieving real change will be difficult.
We need materials, technologies, processes, and people working in the same direction.
We need to design with end-of-life in mind.
In essence, we need to take inspiration from those who have already begun doing exactly that.