Responsibility
We love fashion and loathe waste!
We apply courage and conviction to rescue, reuse and recycle complex textile waste streams.
Our adventurous spirit and deep sense of responsibility drive our actions, from design board to board room.
Paving the way towards circularity
What goes around comes around. We act to make products more circular so that materials are kept in use for longer and where, nothing goes to waste. We have four Circularity Actions that anchor our products and business, keeping our team of circular fashion experts on our toes.
We accept that we are a small start-up. But through our collaborations we bring about bigger changes. Together, we are acting to create a circular future for fashion.
Rescuing waste with circularity in mind
We want to end fashion waste. Simple. So we rescue, reuse and recycle high-quality pre-consumer materials - so they are ‘brand-new’ - from global luxury fashion houses and quality manufacturers, with a solutions-driven and collaborative approach for our industry partners.
We design into rescued materials that are durable and contain no harmful substances. We carefully curate and assess our rescued materials for usability, comfort and style and every material that meets our high standards then gets our red carpet treatment to be redesigned into responsible products.
We want to slow down the environmentally-polluting production of virgin materials. Simple. And so by rescuing high calibre unwanted materials, we bypass virgin textile production altogether. Simple.
Meet R Excess Material partners here.
Designing with circularity tools from our design board
We work with award-winning sustainable designers to create durable pieces that are timeless and will withstand years of use.
We strive to create replicable and scalable solutions to pre-existing, high-frequency waste streams in the fashion industry, striving for zero-waste design, in terms of material utilisation and patterns wherever possible. So once we’ve cracked a waste redesign mission, we can repeat and increase our positive impact. Wherever possible, we limit mixing material types by choosing single fibres, or the same fibre group, for our entire products. So we aim that our fabrics, threads, linings and paddings, if possible, are all in the same fibres, to ease future recycling.
Meet R Designers here.
Working with manufacturers in equal partnership
The only way forward is together. That’s why we’re proud to collaborate in equal partnerships with our like-minded manufacturing partners, from global businesses reducing impacts in the mainstream industry to local social enterprises reviving craftsmanship.
We enlist a collaborative and transparent approach with our manufacturers to bring about the best and most practical circular solutions utilising suppliers' expertise and input. Our suppliers’ technical knowledge is one of our assets. We also ensure our construction is durable to allow longevity and multiple lifetimes, so we’re always all ears when it comes to product development with our manufacturing partners.
Meet R Manufacturers here.
Engaging our customers for longevity
We are all fashion users. We want you to use our products, and call clothes, responsibly. We do our very next to tell our customers the design journey that waste has taken and the design decisions made to bring waste to you. We hope to inspire you about the innovation and collaboration that is sewn into all of our products, hoping that our customers fall in love with their products - creating emotional longevity along the way - as much as we love creating them.
We work hard on our product labelling solutions to tell our stories, from our story labels and Digital Care Labelling, with embedded QR codes to enhance our customers’ experience around our responsibilities. We support our customers on their garment wash and care to promote longevity and maintain the garment in its highest value.
Discover more about Your Care here.
* The carbon emissions and water savings are evaluated by our impact assessment partner, Vaayu. They use the Circular Footprint Formula (CFF), an extension of Life Cycle Analysis (LCA). They analyse the flow of materials and energy into the product throughout its life cycle, from cradle to grave, including raw material extraction, product assembly, labelling and printing, packaging, transport and distribution, product use and end-of-life. In this scenario, CFF measures the amount of resources used and the emissions linked to the rescued and recycled content and recyclability of the product. The measurement meets the need for a standardised approach to assess environmental burdens and credits for suppliers and end users of recycled materials, whilst taking into account market characteristics.