Fashion Recycling Week

16-02-2025
H&M UK & IE and the London College of Fashion’s Centre for Sustainable Fashion (CSF) have teamed up to raise awareness and embrace sustainability. Students have been challenged to create thought-provoking window installations using donated clothes through H&M’s garment collecting initiative. The installations will be displayed in H&M windows in eight key cities across UK and Ireland.
Second year students from the LCF’s Creative Direction course were tasked in groups to interpret each city including Manchester, London and Edinburgh, to engage customer awareness of the extended life of clothes after they have been donated. Customers can win £250 to spend in stores by instagramming their guess of the number of garments used in each installation and posting a picture of the window tagging @hm and the hashtag #CloseTheLoop.
A giant garment collecting box will be located in the Covent Garden Piazza, from Wednesday 2nd – 5th September and during the week customers who donate their unwanted clothes to any store can redeem double discount vouchers for their next purchases.
Renée Cuoco, Centre for Sustainable Fashion Manager said: “It has been an incredible opportunity for the students to explore sustainability from both a conceptual and industry perspective. The students’ work showcases creative approaches in encouraging people to value their clothes as the precious resources they are.”
Catarina Midby, Sustainability Manager H&M UK & IE added: “We recycle no less than 97% of the clothes and textiles we collect into new products like clothes, insulation for cars and most importantly into new garments, closing the loop in fashion.”
The H&M Garment Collecting Initiative is a global incentive to reduce waste in the fashion industry. Ultimately working towards a ‘closed loop’ system, H&M are aiming to repurpose and give new and extended life to unwanted clothes. This is the future of fashion and H&M’s first steps from a linear business model to a circular one.
Fashion Recycling Week from 31st August – 6th September 2015.