The German Start-up Turning Consumers’ Rags Into Designers’ Riches

Circularity may well be the most aspirational buzzword in the fashion industry right now. But it is also true that genuine circularity — where the components that go in at the start of a product’s life cycle are used again at the other end — is particularly hard to achieve given the fashion industry’s complex supply chains. That hasn’t stopped one young German start-up from trying, however. For almost two years, the 10-person team at circular.fashion have been working on a software system that will help garment makers turn linear supply chains circular. The team has already trained the designers at Hugo Boss and at Zalando’s zLabels and won support, prizes and funding from a number of big names — including Zalando, the H&M Foundation, Fashion for Good, and the German state. Now, the multinational Berlin-based group, all aged between 24 and 36, hope to launch their software by the end of the year. “The software has great potential for fashion brands across all segments,” a spokesperson from Hugo Boss told WWD. It’s an idea that one of the start-up’s founders, Ina Budde, first had when she was working as a sustainability consultant. Budde realized that just working on single collections was not

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from WWDWWD http://bit.ly/2XxQDcW