Fashion

During the latest Re-think Milano, Simone Gaslini, owner of Astro Spinning Company, spoke. Simone Gaslini began his talk by introducing Filatura Astro, a family business based in Vigliano Biellese, founded in 1956. It produces 2 million kg/year of recycled yarn and has 30 employees, with a turnover of 7 million euros equally divided between Italy and abroad. Filatura Astro’s yarns are used in the apparel sector to create outerwear, pants, sweaters, and T-shirts, and in the furniture industry where using the yarn in both warp and weft, they create seating for sofas, curtains, and carpets. The core business is recycled yarns, in which the starting material is waste material: scraps from clothing and knitting cuts, spinning mill scraps, and post-consumer material are used. Anything that in the sight of many is non-usable material, in Astro Spinning we look to see if it can be reused by giving it new life and creating new fiber. All raw materials purchased are analyzed both at the level of composition, to guarantee a specific composition to the final consumer, and at the level of chemical substances; in fact, the products created by Filatura Astro are certified with both Oeko-Tex Standard 100 class 1 appendix 6, and GRS, a certification that attests to the real percentage of recycled raw material that makes up the yarn. Recovering fibers from garments or fabrics is only possible with mechanical steps, in which the fabrics are broken down until the fiber is obtained and then transformed into yarn. Simone Gaslini talks about “creating,” not “producing”; Filatura Astro creates fibers and colored yarns from colored knitting yarns. This means that they create colors from colors, they choose colored fibers to create new colors, all without using water and dyes. One has to think that in addition to the water that...

Is a sustainable fashion industry possible? In the talk presented by Barbara Cimmino during the Re-think Naples event that took place last June, we could see how a company through constant efforts and collaborations with external partners can change its economic model from linear to circular. Barbara Cimmino, CSR Director of Yamamay, began her speech by starting precisely from the city of Naples, saying that it is a place that has proven time and again on different fronts and for all industries that it has been able to generate culture over the centuries, and, she says, it is precisely from a culture that we must start again. The change to a more sustainable reality must be carried forward together, by institutions and industry. The Yamamay project started in 2021, and a key theme for the company is biodiversity protection. The study begun last year on biodiversity had anticipated, at the time, the increasing attention to the issue: we do not have another Planet, and at this rate of growth it is not possible to preserve and protect the balance of biodiversity. Cimmino went on to emphasize how necessary it is for companies to change their approach and move from the linear economy system to the circular economy. The transition is possible through measurement and measuring means knowing the state of the problem. Yamamay’s goal is to unite the environmental and digital transition, and this is possible through knowledge. The company began its transition by starting with a focus on the sea, a natural element that covers 70 percent of the earth’s surface, which is also fundamental to the earth’s breathing cycle, can produce 50 percent of the globe’s oxygen and absorb 30 percent of the carbon dioxide produced. The speech continued by introducing the company with some figures: Yamamay ended...

INNOVATION IN THE WORLD OF SUSTAINABLE ITALIAN FASHION   Founded in 2019 by Giovanni Lucchesi after returning from a year-long volunteering experience in Zambia, Mafric is an ethnic-ethical clothing line with an ambitious mission: to promote the employment of people in fragile situations, while conveying a message of multiculturalism, inclusion and sustainability through fashion.    Mafric creates its collections starting from fabrics with prints reminiscent of the colours and patterns typical of Africa, combining them with plain-coloured fabrics to create garments that combine purely Italian style and quality with the exotic colours of distant cultures. The garments in the collections are made exclusively by social tailors located in the Milan and Como areas, where people from highly vulnerable backgrounds, especially women and migrants but also ex-convicts and people with mental and physical disabilities, learn the trade of professional tailors. In this way, Mafric is personally committed to making up for the lack of social vocation on the territory that characterises most fashion companies in Italy, which neglect the impact their production has on workers and the community. With great commitment also in terms of environmental sustainability, Mafric adopts circular economy dynamics through the use of recovered fabrics and recycling and upcycling processes thanks to collaborations with organisations that have been working in these fields for years. By adopting the principles of Slow Fashion, i.e. slow, ethical and solidarity fashion, Mafric aims to offer an alternative production and consumerist model as opposed to the increasingly criticised Fast Fashion, i.e. fast disposable fashion, whose effects are detrimental to both the environment and society.   Numerous small local projects with a mission and commitment similar to Mafric’s already exist, what distinguishes Mafric from the others and makes its project unique and innovative, is its modus operandi and the ambitious goal it sets out to...

During the Circular Threads report presentation held last June, among the many speakers who spoke was Alessandro Canepa of Fratelli Piacenza, who told about the company and the TRICK project they are pursuing. Fratelli Piacenza was founded about 250 years ago and has naturally evolved a lot over the years. From 2017 to 2019, the company has had a 38 percent increase in turnover and has reached an average price of about 60 euros per meter, and it is continuously growing. This growth is also due to the fact that they work in both the men’s and women’s markets with a major effort to expand production capacity, but above all, service, because more than 35% of production is customized and therefore made specifically on customers’ requests. Customers of Fratelli Piacenza belong to the luxury world, so the company’s market is basically luxury, which has been growing strongly in recent years especially in the Middle East. Who are their customers? Those who are called “Henrys”, that is, those who have high purchasing and earning power, and they are also those customers who have a growing focus from a cultural point of view on sustainability issues and green issues in general. So, in essence, it is a trend with a strong impact on those who want to serve this type of market. The UNECE considered that for the production of green products, traceability is one of the essential factors, particularly in the value chain such as textiles, which is usually very long. As is already well known, the textile and fashion industries have a significant impact on the climate, when, however, Canepa pointed out, they do not adopt the correct policies to respect the environment. For example, there is a strong difference between consumption and use of water, in fact, he explained,...

During the presentation of the Circular Threads report held last June, Alessandro Barberis Canonico of Vitale Barberis Canonico in his speech brought a testimony of what the company has been doing over time on sustainability and what they would like to do. First of all, according to them, in order to reach sustainability it is essential to measure it. It is a commitment that can have a very long impact therefore requires numerous and large investments and particularly significant processing volumes, such as theirs, may need a long time. Vitale Barboris Canonico is a company that produces 5.5 million meters of fabric and 1.5 million formal men’s suits a year. In their pursuit to having a positive impact on the chain of sustainability, they are completely made in Italy and with production facilities close to each other which allows them to reduce a good part of their environmental impact. The creation of specific collections and export activities still remain very critical for their environmental impact. Sustainability, in fact, he continued, must be seen in the entire production cycle, from the production of the raw material, to its processing, to the end of life of the garment produced. In order to get at the level, they are now, they started their journey in 1982 and passed through some milestones in the implementation of sustainability. For instance, as early as 1987 they established a biological water treatment plant with activated carbon at the bottom of the plant that had been placed near a pond in the industry area, where they deliver the purified water till date, and by then, they were already able to purify 100% of the water used and were conferring it into this lake. In 2000-2001, the dyehouse was completely redone by making it all automatic so they could...

Last June, in occasion of the Circular Threads report release, we organised a presentation event with experts from the fashion and textile sector, including Giusy Cannone, CEO of Fashion Technology Accelerator. This accelerator was created to support innovative start-ups within the fashion industry. During her speech, Giusy Cannone talked about some possible applications, innovative case studies that seek to make the process and value chain of fashion more sustainable.   First of all, bith the fashion and the textile industry, she started, uses mainly non-renewable resources usually derived from oil, and synthetic fibres, chemicals and toxic products especially in the dyeing and the finishing phases. Moreover, this sector has a low rate use of the garments, sometimes a maximum of 5-6 times, and has a complicated relationship with recycling activities, which is still not enough widespread. Although at the moment the numbers are not reassuring and there is still a lot to do, there are many stakeholders who, through different steps, can make the fashion industry genuinely more circular.   Zooming on what innovation entrepreneurs, also called innovators, do they start from the input, since fabric is not the only important step in the fashion value chain, but it has a significant impact. In this respect, one of the solutions that has already been developed is fabric derived from recycled materials. For instance, recycled polyester, a fabric that is derived from recycled plastic and then reconstituted into polyester fibres. This operation can save around 59% energy compared to virgin polyester.   Moreover, widely used is also the recycled nylon, a product resulting from activities such as fishing. The well-known company Econyl has done an enormous amount of work to bring this solution to market. Even in the luxury segment, recycled nylon is beginning to be introduced, which can significantly save real resources and reduce oil...