GRCULARITY CLOSING THE LOOP WITHOUT LOSING THE STORY

Fashion has always been about what's next, the next season, the next collection, the next trend. But in the race for "new," we've created a system that treats clothes as disposable.

- By Shri Amarasinghe

Enter circular fashion, a movement that asks: What if every garment was designed not to end up in a landfill, but to begin again? Circular fashion is about Screating clothing that stays in use for as long as possible, through repairing, rewearing, reselling, or recycling, and when it finally reaches the end of its life, its materials can safely Ereturn to the cycle. It's a shift from take-make-waste to design-use-renew. I write this from Paris, where glamour and craftsmanship share the same air. This season, the runways whispered, sometimes shouted, that circularity is no longer | a side note in sustainability reports; it's becoming the main design brief.

FROM WASTE TO WORTH

For decades, fashion's linear logic has been, extract, produce, sell, discard. Circularity flips that. It treats waste not as an inevitable by-product but as a design flaw to be corrected. Designers are reimagining the entire process, from fiber choice to end-of-life. Instead of hiding waste behind romantic marketing about "handmade with love," the industry is starting to ask tougher questions: What happens to this fabric when the trend fades? Can it be repaired? Recycled? Reborn? This mindset shift is visible from workshops to the catwalk. Startups and mills are turning scraps into yarns again, brands are piloting buy-back and repair schemes, and young designers are building entire collections from deadstock fabrics. The message is clear, luxury and longevity can, and must, coexist.

THE SCIENCE OF REBIRTH: TEXTILETO-TEXTILE RECYCLING