The fashion chain Zara, which belongs to the Spanish fashion group, has launched its first capsule collection with the Infinited Fiber Company. This current three-piece collection of blazer, skirt and dress consists of 60 percent fibers made from recycled clothing waste. According to the company’s website, most of this waste comes from its own used clothing collection program.
The Infinited Fiber Company is a Finnish fashion and textile technology group that has developed a solution to turn cellulose-rich materials, such as old clothes, back into a textile fiber. The company is currently working on building its first factory, which Zara says is expected to reach its expected production capacity in 2025. “At Zara, we believe this technology will change the industry. That’s why we signed a three-year commitment to purchase 30 percent of Infinited Fiber’s annual production,” writes Zara on its website.
Regarding the recycling process, Zara writes that cotton-rich textiles are first converted into a cellulose powder and then into a honey-like liquid. Remaining impurities, such as elastane, are filtered out. The cellulose can then be further processed and spun into new fiber filaments called Infinna fibers using a wet spinning process, such as with viscose.
According to the material composition of the Zara capsule collection, the dress consists of 60 percent viscose, 37 percent lyocell and three percent elastane.
Infinited Fiber x Zara is the second collaboration of Zara’s Sustainability Innovation Hub, through which various projects are working on the topic of sustainability. The brand’s sustainability goals include, for example, manufacturing at least 50 percent of all items sold in 2022 according to its own Join Life standards. By 2023, all waste generated at the headquarters, in the logistics centers and in the branches should be reused or recycled.