Designers such as Stella McCartney have been championing circular fashion, which is all about minimising waste in production and promoting responsible buying. There are local retailers who are doing their bit for the environment while promoting sustainability in fashion. Find out who some of them are.
Based on the term circular economy where a market is rewarded for giving products a new lease of life rather than creating new ones, circular fashion is similar in that it bids goodbye to the “take-waste-make” model. Instead, it champions sustainability by reusing used fabric to create new garments, using sustainable materials or production methods, and recycling. Here are a few brands walking the green talk.
Indie Design
Positioned as Southeast Asia’s largest discovery platform for sustainable brands, ZERRIN translates into “golden” in Turkish. Embodying circular fashion principles, the platform adopts a zero-plastic approach for its e-commerce packages and rejects the use of virgin synthetic materials. ZERRIN’s popularity is a clear indicator of the increasing consumer demand for environmentally-friendly choices.
Borrowed Style
Looking for an elegant ensemble for your company’s dinner and dance but hesitant to spend big on a brand-new outfit? Keen on new luxury arm candy but unsure if it’s worth the investment? Fret not; you can borrow designer dresses and fashion accessories from Style Theory, a Singapore-based fashion rental platform. It operates on a monthly subscription basis, which still works out to be more affordable (and of course, sustainable) than buying new togs every few weeks. However, if you’re ready to commit to that coveted Chanel 2.55 bag, check out Style Theory’s sister site, Second Edit, a preloved marketplace with its items authenticated by experts.
Preloved Babywear
Parents are all too familiar with how quickly babies and children grow out of their clothes – it is considered a miracle if anything fits for more than a few weeks! Enter Retykle, a secondhand platform for children’s preloved items, including clothes and toys. There are over 2,500 brands on sale on Retykle, all at a fraction of what it’ll cost brand-new. It’s a great way to save yet get new things for little ones!
Old Gold
Gold is worth its weight in well, gold, but did you know that the methods to extract the precious metal are environmentally destructive? Scéona is a fine jewellery brand which takes the bad out of the gold – it uses gold recycled from electronic waste, as well as lab-grown diamonds. Scéona’s designs are classic, making them timeless style statements you can wear for a long time, almost like paying homage to its sustainable ethos.
Gone Digging
One cannot talk about circular fashion without an honorary mention of one of the earliest fashion recycling movements: flea markets! Indeed, there are few things as satisfying as deep-diving into a flea market’s stalls and discovering preloved wearable surprises. Singapore is home to a surprisingly vibrant flea market scene; regular flea events are organised by operators such as Fleawhere, or you can check out the Singapore Really Really Free Market, which is what its name suggests: things for free!
https://byinvade.co/fleawhere and www.facebook.com/srrfm
Gift of Thrift
Most of us have some clothes that would never see the light of day again, but yet are still hanging in the wardrobebecause it’s just too cumbersome to have to sell them online, or to set up a stall at a thrift market. Enter Refash, a local thrift fashion platform which features a hassle-free process for the seller: unwanted clothing is dropped off at one of the Refash stores or collected by a courier, which then gets processed and sold on Refash’s website or one of its brick-and-mortar stores. In other words, all you need to do is spend a few minutes to sift through your clothes, send them off, and wait for the profits to roll in.
