Specials

The Fashion Planet Benchmark Report reveals an alarming gap between industry action and environmental reality, with major brands scoring just 30% in the planet pillar of Good On You’s brand ratings. These charts highlight critical shortfalls in emissions tracking, supply chain transparency, and circular design—and clearly show where brands can demonstrate leadership.

The future of fashion isn’t synthetic. It’s natural. It’s regenerative. And The Sheep Inc brand embodies and symbolises ideas from a carbon-negative supply chain, premium merino wool garments and regenerative farms to that word which is at the core of many debates in the fashion world: transparency.

In today's world people move from one outrage to the next with as much ease as they swipe left over to the next reel. Last year’s Brazil cotton controversy has resurfaced not only because it has been a year to the revelation, but also because Better Cotton is itself pursuing the thread. And, the loopholes in Better Cotton's damage control exercise that was pointed out by Earthsight remain yawning.

Triggered by the logging of 1500-year-old trees, activist-minded Nicole Rycroft, who can also deliver physiotherapy, decided to channel it towards protecting the world’s forests, species, and climate by founding Canopy. The passionate, solutions-driven tree-hugger ‘Cano-pal’ team today straddles four continents as it aligns to transform unsustainable supply chains and advance forest conservation and community rights. In a free-wheeling conversation, the founder and executive director shares how Canopy works with 1,000+ global brands to drive transformative action to eliminate the use of Ancient and Endangered Forests in packaging and textiles while scaling NextGen solutions, and also the route that India needs to follow to achieve its potential.

Zurich-based Gherzi Organisation, incepted in 1929, is a global textile management consulting and engineering company, that has since emerged as a leader for strategic development and expansion of companies in the textile industry, from production to retail. Its services range from engineering of new factories to strategy consulting as also corporate finance. Leading its global team is Giuseppe Gherzi. Gherzi talks India, what ails its textile sector and what can it do to capture the opportunities that exist.

Uganda is the fifth largest importer of second-hand clothing in Africa, and the Owino Market in capital Kampala is key to the trade in the country. A recent report looked at Owino and its impact on business and livelihoods. Study author Jennifer Wang talks about the fine print in the report.

1994. Pioneers yet outliers in an industry focused on conventional resources, a materials science company, developing and commercialising circular economy technologies using industrial and consumer waste streams from the fashion, food, and forestry sectors, is today hoping that consumer awareness and regulatory pressure will trigger collaborations between scientists and designers, leading to responsible material solutions. The face of the Tex2Tex RPET division and COO of Vancouver-based Earth Protex, Samuel Goldstein shares a journey that began decades before sustainability or material science would become buzzwords.

Working at the intersections of farming, leather and fashion, Alice Robinson and Sara Grady founded British Pasture Leather (BPL) to reshape entrenched perceptions of leather and forge the disconnection of this natural material from its source: farms, land and animals. The co-founder duo share how they embarked on their remarkable journey from field to fork and fashion.

Earlier this month, an incisive study looked at prevalent circular fashion (CF) narratives, and contended that CF in its current form is built on unrealistic projections and industry rhetoric. The report has created a buzz, and lead author of the study, Talia Hussain, goes beyond the report in this free-wheeling discussion about the subject.

FEAD and EuRIC have come up with a set of recommendations to address the crises facing the post-consumer textile collection, sorting and recycling industries following the introduction of the EU-wide mandatory Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) scheme for textiles.