Fashion for Good to test bio-based and recycled elastane
Amsterdam-based sustainability hub Fashion for Good has launched a project to validate bio-based and recycled elastane through testing and demonstrator garments with the aim of increasing its adoption.
The consortium includes Levi Strauss & Co for Beyond Yoga, On, Paradise Textiles, Positive Materials and Reformation, with Ralph Lauren Corporation as an advisor.
Katrin Ley, Fashion for Good managing director, said: “Lower-impact elastane solutions exist, but they lack the pilot-scale validation brands need to scale them confidently. This initiative seeks to provide that missing data, turning a well-known recycling ‘contaminant’ into a functional component of a circular supply chain.”
Carrie Freiman Parry, senior director of sustainability at Reformation, added: “Elastane is one of the most overlooked blockers to true circularity in fashion: it’s everywhere and yet there is a significant challenge to recovering it at scale. Stretching Circularity is about tackling that problem at the root and proving that lower-impact stretch materials and new recycling pathways can meet real performance and design standards.”
Lycra’s partially biobased elastane, made using industrial corn from Iowa as a feedstock, is nearing commercial volumes. Hyosung is also working on a partially bio-based elastane.
