H&M's COS launches Restored Collection, "saves damaged garments"

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Aug 30, 2019

H&M as a group has been diving deep into sustainability in recent periods and has just announced that it’s “saving” damaged garments in its first-ever Restore Collection, which launches through its COS chain.

The collection launches on September 4 in COS branches in Berlin, Stockholm and Utrecht.

The group’s Laboratory project and COS have partnered with The Renewal Workshop to make a “first of its kind” collection, consisting of “former unsellable clothing that [has] been mended and brought back to the assortment.”

The pieces have been sourced from the COS supply chain or returned by customers and the selected items “have been carefully mended and cleaned by The Renewal Workshop making them suitable to sell again.”

Laura Coppen, who runs Circular/Sustainable Business Development  at The Laboratory said the initiative is “an important test to stretch our thinking around new business models for a circular economy. We have a big responsibility with the scale and impact we currently have on the environment and this test is one example of many where we are exploring new solutions. It is essential we ideate new solutions for a lower impact on our environment whilst offering customers quality, beautiful products that last.”

The group added that by taking care of its existing garments, it wants to extend the lifespan of its products and “make sure to use what otherwise would be considered as excess products.”

Waste product has been in the news in recent periods with a spotlight shone on what fashion firms do with unsold product when it emerged that Burberry incinerated million of pounds worth of items. The luxury firm retreated from that strategy after a media storm and other companies have been keen to stress their own eco approach to such items.

This new initiative is part of H&M’s overall aim of becoming fully circular and the company said it selected its partner carefully with the cleaning process for the items in this collection, using “state-of-the-art waterless technology, which saves water and leaves no water contaminated. “

Coppen also said that “collaboration is key for [the] group to be able to achieve our sustainability commitments.”

And there’s a data element to all this too as impact-data collected from a third party, will give it the chance “to see exactly how much water, Co2, and energy we save by rescuing these products and making this collection. This information will also be displayed publicly in the stores where the collection will be sold.”