Circular Fashion Education Toolkit

Online Learning Resources for Students and Teachers

Video Library
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More, more, more:
overproduction, overconsumption
and fast fashion business models

 Context

Minute MBA: The Business of Fast Fashion
Fast Fashion' refers to clothing and accessories that are designed to reflect current industry trends, yet produced using less expensive materials to ensure a low price tag. The Fast Fashion trend has also led to environmental concerns.
Can fashion ever be ethical and cheap?
The fashion industry is under huge pressure to become more sustainable. But with the rise of fashion houses selling cheaper clothes, will people want to pay more for ethically made garments? Patrick Grant, British menswear designer and judge on the Great British Sewing Bee, went to meet Jenny Holloway, who runs an ethical fast fashion factory, to debate whether fashion can become affordable and sustainable.

 A long time ago… A short history of overproduction

Story of Stuff Project: Why Does Black Friday Exist?
Black Friday is the American tradition where millions of shoppers wait in long lines to buy more Stuff. How did the season of giving turn into the season of buying? Why does Black Friday even exist?
Uniformly Sustainable
Do you remember the checked uniform you wore at school?
Most of us would have worn school uniforms. School uniforms are not only our collective memories, but they could also be the most worn type of garments! However, times have changed - not only we want our clothes to look trendier so as our school uniforms.

 Exploring overproduction: producing cheaper

Behind the News - Fashion Factories
Hundreds of people were killed when a factory collapsed in Bangladesh recently. Bosses told staff they had to work in the building even though the owner had been told it was unsafe. The factory made clothes for some well-known fashion brands. So why do we make so many of our clothes overseas? Let's take a look.
Fashion Revolution: 2 Euro T Shirt Social Experiment
Fashion for a bargain - that‘s what everyone wants. A T-Shirt for 2€ isn‘t inconceivable nowadays. Unfortunately, people don‘t often consider who is paying the real price. We placed a bright turquoise vending machine, offering t-shirts for 2 Euros, at Alexanderplatz in Berlin, to test whether people would still buy it when they are confronted with the conditions in which it was produced. Eight out of ten shoppers decided against it!

 Exploring overconsumption: shopping habits worth breaking

Circular Fashion in Hong Kong: Overconsumption and Overproduction
Fashion may be known as a glamorous industry, but its impact can be anything but. With many of us caught in a cycle of buying more clothes but wearing them less often, can we nurture a more sustainable mindset when it comes to our wardrobes?
Circular Fashion in Hong Kong: Overconsumption and Overproduction
Fashion may be known as a glamorous industry, but its impact can be anything but. With many of us caught in a cycle of buying more clothes but wearing them less often, can we nurture a more sustainable mindset when it comes to our wardrobes?
Behind the News: Fashion waste
Australians love buying new clothes, but the latest trends might not always last long in your wardrobe. Those clothes can take decades to break down in landfill. So now some environmental groups say we should be buying better quality clothes and committing to them for longer.
Greenpeace International: Detox My Fashion: Shopping Report Summary
A new survey, commissioned by Greenpeace, of the shopping habits of people in Europe and Asia finds that regularly buying too many clothes, shoes, bags and accessories has become an international phenomenon. Consumers are no longer shopping because they need something. On the contrary: younger people in particular shop despite already having too much, longing for fulfilment and encouraged by social media and the ease of online shopping. However, shopping doesn’t make people happy as the excitement only provides a temporary fix.
Tan France: Why I don't knock fast fashion
Tan France has explained to BBC Radio 5 Live why he doesn't criticise fast fashion. Queer Eye's Fashion expert gave his tips for dressing in a sustainable way, but also told 5 Live's Laura Whitmore he understood why people chose to wear cheaper clothes.
綠色和平: 消費的反思: 你為何而買
過度消費已成為國際現象,蔓延至世界各地,東亞尤其嚴重。過度消費的行為無法帶來持續的快樂,狂歡式的購物後,可能伴隨由空虛與內疚組合而成的負面情緒。

 Exploring overconsumption: marketing madness

Story of Stuff Project: How Advertising Rewires Kids’ Brains
We see ads everywhere and kids are no exception. How does this flood of marketing affect a child’s development? *BEST FOR OLDER STUDENTS
Story of Stuff Project: 3 Dirty Marketing Tricks to Get You To Buy More Stuff
Do you ever wonder how stores can offer seemingly ridiculous sales on Black Friday and Cyber Monday? This video will show you the dirty tricks companies use to manipulate you into buying more stuff. *BEST FOR OLDER STUDENTS

 Exploring overconsumption: the power of online shopping and social media

Today: Social Media Influencers Are Changing The Way Companies Market Their Products
There’s a new wave in the way companies are advertising to consumers, shifting away from print and broadcast mediums and using popular social media users to promote their products. In this week’s Sunday Closer, NBC’s Jo Ling Kent takes a look at the modern, billion-dollar industry.
CBS Sunday Morning: Simon Huck on social media influencers
In this web exclusive, correspondent Alina Cho talks with Simon Huck, of the public relations firm Command PR, about the importance of internet celebrities in marketing and building brand awareness. Stars on platforms such as Twitter, Instagram and Facebook have become, in the eyes of their millions of followers, arbiters of taste with more impact than a prime time TV commercial. *BEST FOR OLDER STUDENTS

 Exploring overproduction and overconsumption: environmental problems

 A better future: sustainable production and consumption

The Economist: The true cost of fast fashion (Patagonia case study)
Millions of tonnes of clothes end up in landfill every year—it’s one of the fastest-growing categories of waste in the world. How can the fashion industry continue to grow while addressing the environmental need for people to buy fewer clothes?
RedressAsia: The 365 Challenge Summary - Redress it, don't bin it!
The 365 Challenge 2013 was a one-year secondhand clothing challenge seeing our Founder, Christina Dean, only wearing 100% dumped, discarded or donated secondhand clothes to promote the 'Redress it, don't bin it' concept. Every day through 2013, Christina wore secondhand clothes, sourced with support of Friends of the Earth (HK) and styled by illustrious fashion stylists, in order to showcase 365 inspiring ways to keep clothing waste out of landfill and in the fashion loop.
BBC News: Fast fashion: Are we buying too many clothes?
Experts warn that our increasing levels of fashion consumption are a danger to the environment. Some fashion bloggers are promoting creative ways to love the clothes you already own - and to cut down on buying new ones.
Ellen Macarthur Foundation: Green? Seeing the Bigger Picture
What would happen if we 'greened' everything? What does that even mean? Some points to consider here…
Ellen Macarthur Foundation: Use Less? Seeing the Bigger Picture
If we all used less stuff, would it solve the problems of our linear economy? Maybe not…
Ellen Macarthur Foundation: Last Longer? Seeing the Bigger Picture
What would happen if we made products that lasted longer? Some of the spin-offs might not be what we want...

Fashion’s dirty secret:
Clothing pollution & textile waste

 Context

RedressAsia: Redress School Resources: Fashion and the Environment
This is a video version of the Get Redressed talk we run in junior and secondary schools across Hong Kong, on the theme "Fashion and the Environment". The presentation introduces students to the issue of textile waste, encourages them to reflect on their own fashion consumption, clothing use and disposal habits, and provides them with the knowledge and tools to take direct and positive action.
TED: The surprising thing I learned sailing solo around the world | Dame Ellen MacArthur
What do you learn when you sail around the world on your own? When solo sailor Ellen MacArthur circled the globe – carrying everything she needed with her – she came back with new insight into the way the world works, as a place of interlocking cycles and finite resources, where the decisions we make today affect what's left for tomorrow. She proposes a bold new way to see the world's economic systems: not as linear, but as circular, where everything comes around.
TED-Ed: The Lifecycle of a T Shirt by Angel Chang
Consider the classic white t-shirt. Annually, we sell and buy 2 billion t-shirts globally, making it one of the most common garments in the world. But how and where is the average t-shirt made, and what’s its environmental impact? Angel Chang traces the life cycle of a t-shirt.
SokFok Studio: The Journey of a Pair of Jeans
The Journey of a Pair of Jeans is the story behind the production of jeans. We used animation and graphics to explain and deconstruct the lifecycle analysis of this common garment.
ABC Behind The News - Fashion Waste
Australians love buying new clothes, but the latest trends might not always last long in your wardrobe. Those clothes can take decades to break down in landfill. So now some environmental groups say we should be buying better quality clothes and committing to them for longer.
BBC Earth: Can Fashion Be Sustainable?
By producing billions of clothes every year, the fast fashion industry is also releasing waste and chemicals into our world, polluting and driving species to the brink of extinction. Is there a solution to being both fashionable and sustainable?
Vice News - Fashion’s Crippling Impact on The Environment Is Only Getting Worse
The fashion week tents have been packed up and the models sent home until the next collection debuts, but one deeply entrenched industry trend shows no sign of stopping: Fast fashion, which has become one of the biggest sources of pollution in the world. *BEST FOR OLDER STUDENTS
Catwalk to Creation
Given 83% of all of our waters contain plastic microfibres and a 1/3 of this is said to come from the fashion industry, learn how you can be apart of the solution, not the problem..Having debuted the social film at the V&A and the United Nations General Assembly earlier this year, Part 1 of the Catwalk2Creation docuseries directed and produced by award-winning duo Charney Magri and Ramzi Moutran is now live. *BEST FOR OLDER STUDENTS
Fashion Revolution - Beautiful' by Hollie McNish
This poem by Hollie McNish asks us to re-think whether things are “beautiful” if they harm people and the environment.

 Material matters: The eco-impact of clothes production

Where does cotton come from?
A short film for kids to show how cotton is harvested and processed in the USA.
Behind The News - Cotton Cows
If you're lucky enough to live on a farm you probably know a bit about the raw materials that make up the food we eat and the clothes we wear. You might've grown your own vegies or seen wool shorn from a sheep's back. But many kids in the city don't get to see that stuff. And according to a new survey that's leaving them a bit confused about where some everyday products even come from.
CNN Business - Watch 350 balls of cotton turn into a shirt
Follow every step in the process of turning a pile of cotton into thread, then fabric and finally a shirt.
California Academy of Sciences - The Chemistry of Clothes
What is the difference between synthetic and natural materials? How are synthetic materials made? *BEST FOR OLDER STUDENTS
Twig World - Invention of Nylon
This film, from Twig World, looks at what makes the polymer Nylon so durable.
Victoria and Albert Museum - How Was It Made? Linen
Linen's diverse use and dominance in Western fashion is no surprise. The rich soil and frequent rain of Northern France, Belgium and the Netherlands uniquely suit the flax plant, resulting in the highest quality flax and linen. While other countries, including China and Canada, do grow flax, the need for irrigation, fertilisers, and pesticides negates many of the plant's considerable environmental benefits. Today, the European Union grows 70% of all flax.
Behind The News - Croc Skins
When you think of the sort of animals you'd use to make clothes - saltwater crocs are probably not very high on the list. They don't exactly come across as soft and cuddly. But that is exactly what is happening - croc skins from the muddy mangroves of Oz are all the rage on the catwalks in Paris. It's such a big business that scientists are being used to breed more fashionable crocs.

 A deep dive into freshwater scarcity

California Academy of Sciences - How Do We Meet The Growing Need for Water?
Humans depend on water and our need for this precious resource is growing alongside our population. How will we meet the needs of the future without harming the environment? In this video, we'll explore key water issues, the water cycle, and some of the technology and techniques used to conserve water.
BBC - The astonishing amount of water used to make a pair of jeans!
Influencer Grace Mandeville presents a new short form docu-series for BBC iPlayer to see whether we can still enjoy the thrill of shopping for fashion while doing it consciously and sustainably. Grace Mandeville learns how many thousands of litres of water go into a single item of clothes and questions whether to stop wearing jeans.
BBC3 - Confronting shoppers with a shocking truth
Journalist Stacey Dooley asks high street shoppers how much water was used to make their new purchases.

 The murky truth about water pollution

Al Jazeera: Bangladesh's garment factories pollute rivers, affecting residents' health
In Bangladesh's capital, Dhaka, the government has declared three rivers as "biologically dead" due to the effluent from surrounding garment factories. That's because the country has grown into a cheap clothing manufacturing hub of the world. But poor regulation of the industry is taking a toll on its rivers and the health of the poor who live nearby. *BEST FOR OLDER STUDENTS

 Microplastics and oceans: from fashion to the food chain

The Story of Microfibres
Most of us wear synthetic fabrics like polyester every day. Our dress shirts, yoga pants, fleeces, and even underwear are all increasingly made of synthetic materials -- plastic, in fact. But these synthetic fabrics, from which 60% of all clothing on earth is made, have a big hidden problem: when they’re washed, they release tiny plastic bits -- called microfibers -- that flow down our drains, through water treatment plants, and out into our rivers, lakes and oceans by the billions.
ITV News - Fast Fashion ‘harming our seas’
Fabric fragments shed from cheap, disposable clothes, often during washing, are clogging the seas around Britain, scientists have warned.

 Textile waste: think before you throw

Circular Fashion in Hong Kong: Textile Waste
Globally, one truckful of textile waste is sent to landfill every second of the day. Here in Hong Kong, 170 tonnes of clothing waste are discarded daily (as of 2019). This not only adds pressure to the city’s overflowing landfills, but also wastes the many natural resources used throughout the production process.
Circular Fashion in Hong Kong: Textile Waste
Globally, one truckful of textile waste is sent to landfill every second of the day. Here in Hong Kong, 170 tonnes of clothing waste are discarded daily (as of 2019). This not only adds pressure to the city’s overflowing landfills, but also wastes the many natural resources used throughout the production process.
Behind The News - Landfill
Once a piece of rubbish leaves your hand and lands in the bin most of us forget about it. But what journey does it take from there?
The Story of Stuff Project - Where Does Your Trash End Up?
Where does your stuff go when you throw it away? The reality is a lot closer than you think. *BEST FOR OLDER STUDENTS
Fast-Fashion Pollution in Ghana
ITV's Earth on the Edge series looks at how fast fashion, throwaway culture is having dire environmental consequences halfway around the world.
Unravel: The final resting place of your cast-off clothing
When people in the West throw their clothes away, their cast-offs often go on a journey east, across the oceans, to India’s industrial interior. From the Kutch District of western India to the northern city of Panipat, garment recyclers turn into yarn the huge bales of clothes that come from people and places distinctly strange. With little exposure to Western culture other than the Discovery Channel, the garment recyclers rely on their imagination and the rumours that travel with the cast-offs to create an an intriguing perspective on the West. *BEST FOR OLDER STUDENTS
CBC Marketplace - Clothes from Canada account for huge waste
Clothes thrown away account for a huge amount of waste in garbage dumps, according to CBC Marketplace's latest investigation. Canadians on average purchase 70 new articles of clothing a year and that contributes to the 12 million tons a year of textile waste dumped into North America's landfills. Some retailers have launched sustainability campaigns and set up in-store bins for recycling old items, but it's no solution to the endless onslaught of throw-away clothes. *BEST FOR OLDER STUDENTS
Re-Think Re-Use Clothing Spill Installation
This Earth Day, Value Village used 3,000 pounds of discarded clothing to get people to think twice about the environmental impact of what they wear. The installation was brought to life by artists from Electric Coffin, and enlightened passersby to the realities of “clothing pollution”.
Savers Thrift - Give a sh!rt about your clothing footprint art installation
An art installation made from unwanted clothing to start a conversation around the environmental impact of clothing.
Laura Francois & Von Wong - Where are your clothes born?
This video documents Laura Francois and VonWong’s used clothing installation in an abandoned Cambodian clothing factory.

The future of fashion:
innovative technology and circular business models

 Context

Circular Classroom: Module 1: Moving from the linear to the circular economy
What is the difference in the linear and circular economies, and how does it affect us all? What kinds of actions can we take to help design a future that works better for us all? What potential for solving complex problems does a circular future hold?
Ellen MacArthur Foundation: The Circular Economy
Ellen takes us on a journey to investigates how insights from living systems might offer some of the answers to how we can re-design our future, in a world of increasing finite materials and energy. *BEST FOR OLDER STUDENTS
TED: The surprising thing I learned sailing solo around the world | Dame Ellen MacArthur
What do you learn when you sail around the world on your own? When solo sailor Ellen MacArthur circled the globe – carrying everything she needed with her – she came back with new insight into the way the world works, as a place of interlocking cycles and finite resources, where the decisions we make today affect what's left for tomorrow. She proposes a bold new way to see the world's economic systems: not as linear, but as circular, where everything comes around. *BEST FOR OLDER STUDENTS
TED Institute: Fashion is fuel for innovation
From the Industrial Revolution to WWII to the hippie movement, the culture of fashion has always blended the cutting edge of self-expression with the latest innovations in technology. Today, fashion is no different, weaving VR, AR, and leading sustainable technologies into the very fabric of contemporary clothing, and addressing larger global issues to design the future we want to live in.

 Take, make and dispose: the linear economy

Ellen MacArthur Foundation: The Linear System - Seeing the Bigger Picture
The materials economy is inherently linear: we take, make and dispose. This can't last forever, but what can?
Doughnut Economics Action Lab - Create to Regenerate - 6/7 Doughnut Economics
These animations are based on the book, Doughnut Economics: seven ways to think like a 21st century economist, the best-seller by Kate Raworth.
Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership: The scale of growth
Grasping the scale of environmental impacts is challenging. This visualisation attempts to make some of the numbers a little more concrete.

 Closing the loop: the circular economy

Ellen MacArthur Foundation: Imagine a chair
This short animation film, produced for the Ellen MacArthur Foundation by the author Christiane Dorion, explains to children in a simple way the concept of a circular economy. Just like cycles in nature, we can design and make our stuff to be made again, so materials can be reused over and over in an endless loop, without creating any waste.
Ellen MacArthur Foundation: Re-thinking Progress: The Circular Economy
There's a world of opportunity to re-think and re-design the way we make stuff. 'Re-Thinking Progress' explores how through a change in perspective we can re-design the way our economy works - designing products that can be 'made to be made again' and powering the system with renewable energy. It questions whether with creativity and innovation we can build a restorative economy.
Archbishop Holgate's School: What is a Circular Economy?
This video was created by pupils at Archbishop Holgate's School in York. This video is our entry into a UK wide competition run by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. *BEST FOR OLDER STUDENTS

 The circular economy across different industries

Ellen MacArthur Foundation: The circular economy: from consumer to user
With the price of resources and energy becoming increasingly volatile, can today's linear economy work in the long term?
CNBC International: What is the circular economy? | CNBC Explains
Imagine a world where you never throw anything away. CNBC's Elizabeth Schulze explains the circular economy. *BEST FOR OLDER STUDENTS
Reinvent: An Animated Overview of the Sharing Economy
Fred is a Baby Boomer mayor who's pretty sure he's got things figured out. Wife and 2.5 kids, big house in the suburbs, steady full-time job. Fred is living through a number of large-scale changes as our world becomes more digital, global, and sustainable. When the sharing economy comes along, he doesn't quite know what to make of it. *BEST FOR OLDER STUDENTS
RediscoveryCentre: What is circular fashion?
Circular Fashion is adopted for the circular economy principles where we take into account the full life cycle of a product. Nothing goes to waste and everything is utilised, repurposed and recycled in the most effective and sustainable manner possible. This video explains what is circular fashion and why it is important to the fashion industry.
Ellen MacArthur Foundation - Meet the people rethinking ownership
In the first episode of our meet the redesigners film series, which showcases the circular economy in action, we meet the people behind modular headphones that you subscribe to, rather than buy, a platform for renting and sharing clothes, and find out more about H&M's latest work on new business models. *BEST FOR OLDER STUDENTS
Fairphone: Sustainable phone design from Fairphone 3
Fairphone 3 is our latest response for a more ethical and sustainable phone. Our industrial designer, James Barber, tells about the choices we made, to design a long-lasting companion.
FeedingHK: Feeding Hong Kong. Food. Wanted, Not Wasted
Every day, 3,600 tonnes of food waste are sent to landfills in Hong Kong, while more than one million people live in poverty struggling to afford nutritious meals. We’re on a mission to change that. Here’s how.

 Creating fashion’s circular economy: designing out waste and pollution

Circular Fashion in Hong Kong: Resource Scarcity
Making one cotton T-shirt uses up to 2,720 litres of water – that’s one person’s drinking water for three years! Are there any sustainable alternatives that allow us to produce these basic necessities without the same environmental toll?
Circular Fashion in Hong Kong: Resource Scarcity
Making one cotton T-shirt uses up to 2,720 litres of water – that’s one person’s drinking water for three years! Are there any sustainable alternatives that allow us to produce these basic necessities without the same environmental toll?
Fashion Conscious BBC - The astonishing fabrics we could be wearing in the future!
Influencer Grace Mandeville presents a new short form docu-series for BBC iPlayer to see whether we can still enjoy the thrill of shopping for fashion while doing it consciously and sustainably. Grace attends the Future Fabrics Expo and learns about the many alternatives to traditional fabrics. From fish materials to yam leaves, she questions whether these could be the future of fashion as we know it. *BEST FOR OLDER STUDENTS
Victoria and Albert Museum: The future of fashion: Bolt Threads
Using genetically modified (or recombinant) yeast, sugar, water and salt, Bolt Threads have developed a closed-loop process to bio-engineer a new protein fibre mimicking the structure of spider silk. It requires neither the polluting chemicals of petroleum-derived materials nor the land, water and pesticides of conventionally farmed fibres. In 2017, designer Stella McCartney teamed up with Bolt Threads to launch the first fashion collection using the new bio-engineered fabric. *BEST FOR OLDER STUDENTS
Victoria and Albert Museum: The future of fashion: Pulp-It
Scientists and designers in Sweden and Britain have created a wearable ‘paper’. The inexpensive 21st-century fabric has an intentionally short lifespan, and can be recycled or industrially composted. Made from unbleached wood pulp and other bio-based materials, the non-woven paper is finished using natural dyes, laser surfacing, and efficient ultrasonic construction. Energy and chemicals are reduced at every stage. With automated production, consumers could customise each garment’s colour, pattern and shape. Acknowledging that disposable fashion forms part of most wardrobes, this new material offers a more sustainable approach to fast fashion. *BEST FOR OLDER STUDENTS
Tech Insider: How Adidas Turns Plastic Bottles Into Shoes
In 2015 Adidas partnered with Parley for the Oceans to turn marine pollution like plastic bottles into shoes and sportswear. Like its Ultraboost and Alphaboost shoes, the two companies have prevented over 2,800 tons of plastic from reaching the ocean. And in 2019 Adidas expects to make 11 million pairs of shoes with recycled marine waste. But how are these shoes made?
How It’s Made: How It’s Made Polyester (Recycled)
This video provides a detailed study into exactly how plastic bottles are recycled into polyester.
SCMP Archive: How China’s highly-polluting clothing industry is going green
For decades China has produced the majority of the world’s clothing but this massive money-making industry has also been one of the country’s worst polluters. But in recent years, as the Chinese government has tightened its environmental policies, the garment industry has taken steps to make the manufacture of clothes more sustainable. TAL has always sought to minimise its impact on the environment since its inception 70 years ago.
Quartz: Levi’s is starting to break in jeans with lasers
Levi's goes to great lengths to give their jeans an aged, vintage look. Their newest method creates "broken in" jeans in about 90 seconds. Using lasers.
Forbes Asia: Starting From Scratch: unspun
An interview with unspun co-founder, Kevin Martin, at the HAX office in Shenzhen. unspun is a startup that uses 3D data to create custom-fit jeans in days.
BBC Click: Using Bacteria To Make Fashion More Sustainable
We looked at a new process to dye clothes using bacteria which could bring environmental benefits. The process uses much less water to colour clothes and reduces the amount of harmful waste that can be associated with traditional dyeing methods.
Sustainable Uniform Design
Many school uniforms are designed conventionally, and many are possibly out-of-date. Mr Chu Chi Wing, the former principal of Baptist Tianhong Primary School, has insight into the issues with the conventional system and has made drastic changes in his school. Students can not only match the school uniforms according to the weather, occasions and personal preferences, but also reduce the waste created from traditional school uniforms.
Lenzing Group: TENCEL™ Lyocell with REFIBRA technology
The pioneering REFIBRA™ technology involves upcycling a substantial proportion of cotton scraps e.g. from garment production, in addition to wood pulp, where the raw material is transformed to produce new virgin TENCEL™ Lyocell fibers to make fabrics and garments.

 Creating fashion’s circular economy: keeping products in use

Fashion Conscious BBC: Is this the most sustainable way to refresh your wardrobe
Influencer Grace Mandeville presents a new short form docu-series for BBC iPlayer to see whether we can still enjoy the thrill of shopping for fashion while doing it consciously and sustainably. Grace Mandeville goes swishing, which is a clothes swapping event to try an alternative to buying into fast fashion.
Mud Jeans International B.V.: MUD Jeans - Recycling your jeans
Mud Jeans promotes usage over ownership, facilitating the transition to a circular economy in the fashion industry by leasing jeans and recycling or up-cycling materials.
SokFok Studio: Mud Jeans - “Lease A Jeans”
MUD Jeans is a sustainable and fair trade certified denim brand based in The Netherlands. In 2013, MUD Jeans launched the pioneering lease system. This system ensures that they keep hold of the fibres that went into their jeans and that every garment comes back to them and gets recycled. Customers can keep the jeans for as long as they want, with a Repair Service provided for free. In this video Bert van Son, CEO and Founder of MUD Jeans and Eva Engelen, Sustainability Director, explain how circular economy can be a business model in fashion. *BEST FOR OLDER STUDENTS
Patagonia: How Does Worn Wear Work?
WornWear.com is an online store for used Patagonia clothing– helping clothes that sit idle in closets make their way back into the field, instead of the landfills. If you need a garment, you can buy used on WornWear.com (or new on Patagonia.com). If you are no longer using a piece of Patagonia clothing, trade it in at a Patagonia store and receive credit to put towards a used or new Patagonia product.
BBC News: The woman who wants you to rent used baby clothes
Vigga Svensson wants Danish parents to rent used baby clothes, to save the planet.
BTR Ltd: Behind the Scenes at Bristol Textile Recycler
See what happens to the recycling we collect from one of our long term charity partners, St Peters Hospice. Get a behind the scenes look at the recycling journey from shop to shipping out for reuse abroad.

 Creating fashion’s circular economy: recycling

My Green Closet: How Old Clothes Can Become New Clothes
What can be recycled? How does it work? In this video we talk about textile waste, recycling, and get a behind-the-scenes look at how Mud Jeans turns their old jeans into new jeans!
HKRITA: Textile Waste Recycling Using a Biological Method
HKRITA: Garment to Garment Recycling System
Ellen MacArthur - Recycling? Seeing the Bigger Picture
Recycling is a good idea, but perhaps it is poorly executed. What could we do to make it better?
Fashion For Good: Worn Again - How do we close the loop in fashion?
Most clothes are made from fabric blends, with cotton and polyester being one of the most common combinations. Unfortunately, blended garments are more difficult to recycle than pure ones. Worn Again has come up with a solution to this problem. Its textile to textile recycling technology can separate and recapture cotton and polyester from discarded clothes. The end result is raw materials that are just like new.
Letsrecycle.com: Fibersort Textile sorting machine unveiled
VIDEO REPORT: A machine which can sort recycled textiles into 14 separate fibre types at a rate which is claimed to be six times faster than a human can achieve, has been unveiled in Holland.
Hubbub: A day in the life of I:CO textiles recycling factory
Each year in the UK we throw away 1 million tonnes of textiles, 60% of which is re-wearable and the remainder can be recycled into new fabrics or down cycled to create products such as insulation. We visited SOEX textiles recycling factory in Wolfen, Germany, to find out what happens to all of the textiles collected through I:CO, which you can find in your local H&M store. *BEST FOR OLDER STUDENTS
Science & Technology Australia: Solve it with Science - the scale of textile waste and recycling basics
Meet Nolene Byrne, who is finding ways to reduce textile waste and improve the way we recycle. We face some big challenges as a community and as a globe. We are sharing stories that show how we can solve many of these challenges using Australian science and technology. See how we can #SolveitwithScience. *BEST FOR OLDER STUDENTS

 Creating fashion’s circular economy: upcycling

Eastpak: Eastpak x Christopher Raeburn
This video showcases backpacks made from recycled military uniforms
South China Morning Post: How a Hong Kong designer gives vintage kimono and Chinese wedding dress a second life
Growing up in Hong Kong’s Shek Kip Mei district surrounded by factory waste motivated designer Vincci Ching to use vintage fabrics for her clutches, purses, cufflinks and other accessories.
Patagonia: ReCrafted | These Are Clothes Made From Other Clothes
These are clothes made from other clothes. Introducing our Worn Wear ReCrafted line from Patagonia.
BBC News: Duvet clothes tackle 'throwaway culture'
Retro outfits made from old duvets are popular with festival-goers and Disney fans.
Now This: Zero Waste Daniel Turns Clothing Scraps Into Fashion
This clothing line turns fabric scraps into unique pieces of clothing. Daniel Silverstein founded 'Zero Waste Daniel', aka 'ZWD', to close the gap on the fashion industry's waste problem – here's Daniel's story.
Cathay Pacific: Well-Travelled Lai See
We’ve teamed up with local NGO Redress, eco-designer Angus Tsui and St. James’ Settlement Upcycling Centre to create our Well-Travelled Lai See — crafted from retired staff uniforms. These multipurpose Lai See are another step in our efforts to give back to the environment and our local community, with all proceeds to be donated to Feeding Hong Kong.
升級再造布羽毛襟針工作坊:謹慎消費、謹慎使用、謹慎丟棄
《一物》提倡的「謹慎消費」絕不限於付錢那一刻需要三思,連帶我們如何使用、丟棄都是需要謹慎的步驟。早前《一物》與Toby Crispy@LastbutnotLeast的創辦人聯乘的「升級再造布羽毛襟針工作坊」圓滿結束,她不但教授同學們以布碎製成獨一無二的布羽毛襟針,更示範了如何將舊物發揮出新用途。其實只要我們在生活中多動點腦筋、心思,一物變能變成多用,無需不斷購買新物!

Explore Our Learning Modules

1More, more, more Overproduction, overconsumption & fast fashion business models

1

More, more, more
Overproduction, overconsumption & fast fashion business models

2Fashion’s dirty secret Clothing pollution & textile waste

2

Fashion’s dirty secret
Clothing pollution & textile waste

3The future of fashion Innovative technology & circular business models

3

The future of fashion
Innovative technology & circular business models


 
 

ABOUT REDRESS

Redress is a pioneering Hong Kong based environmental charity with a mission to educate and empower the fashion industry and consumers to reduce clothing’s negative environmental impact by shifting to circular solutions. Our education programme focuses on educating consumers in Hong Kong of all ages about their fashion footprint and empowering them to drive change through circular solutions like buying more responsibly, donating clothes for reuse, or shopping secondhand.

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ABOUT THE ECF CIRCULAR FASHION EDUCATION TOOLKIT

This bilingual education toolkit including a handful of student and teacher resources is funded by the Environment and Conservation Fund and the Environmental Campaign Committee. It was designed in consultation with teachers and curriculum advisors from the English Schools Foundation, the Education Bureau of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, and our wider network of Hong Kong schools, who provided invaluable guidance, support and feedback.