When it comes to more sustainable fashion, H&M likes to challenge itself. As the brand believes that it is innovations and ideas that bring it closer to closing the loop: creating a sustainable life cycle where nothing goes to waste. Where the brand renews and reuses old materials. Question is, how recycled can a garment be?
A new pair of denim requires thousands of liters of water to create. Finding a vintage pair takes non (perhaps a thirst-quenching glass after hours searching for those vintage jeans in the correct size). Looking for that perfect pair can be a time-consuming struggle and not everyone can find that golden ticket. The best thing would be creating something new without creating new materials, and make this way more accessible than a rare vintage find. Thus H&M introduced its new recycled denim collection.
Where the brand used sustainable washing techniques for lower ecological impact and is free from hazardous textile chemicals.
Made from 100% repurposed materials – from fabrics, threads, labels to pocketing – The recycled denim collection offers Gen Z beloveds like baggy jeans, loose straight jeans, trucker jackets, oversized overshirts and tote bags.
H&M combined pre-consumer recycled cotton from industrial waste cuttings and post-consumer recycled cotton from collected garments, a few included recycled polyester. Similarly, accessories are made from fabrics that have been cut and re-used from manufacturing rejections.
H&M stated, “Isn’t it amazing to have a denim collection like this to represent the possibilities of recycled materials? Maybe you think that the ’90s and patchwork details are only a trend, but we promise you, it is an ever-returning one. Either way, it’s a collection you don’t have to struggle to find. And feel extra good about wearing.”
H&M defines the Recycled Denim collection as a time-saving substitute to searching for the perfect-fitting vintage denim. By going backward and reusing leftover fabrics, this denim collection is kinder to the planet. All pieces in this collection are made from repurposed materials.
With the ambitions to move to a close-the-loop production system. H&M’s 2020 Jeans Redesign collection and its investment in Infinited Fiber Company, the maker of regenerated Infinna fiber, represent this effort.
