The material is called Circulose® and it is a breakthrough in sustainable fashion. BESTSELLER is at the forefront of its use due our collaboration with Swedish innovator Renewcell, which produces Circulose®.

The partnership with Renewcell is the latest to be unveiled under the umbrella of BESTSELLER Innovation Lab – our sustainability innovation hub.

“This is innovation at market scale. It’s an extremely important milestone for BESTSELLER and our innovation lab that we now have a sustainable recycling method to produce commercial fashionable garments for our stores. Even more incredible, Circulose® is a low-impact circular material of an excellent quality and it supports our sustainability strategy Fashion FWD 100 percent,” says Camilla Skjønning Jørgensen, BESTSELLER’s Sustainable Materials and Innovation Manager.

Recycling clothes finally works

Renewcell’s Circular Business Manager Jenny Fredricsdotter agrees that this is an important collaboration as it demonstrates the commercial capability of Circulose® and that recycling textiles finally works.

“We rely on global brands like BESTSELLER to help us close the loop on fashion globally by spreading awareness to their customers and using their influence to shift the supply chain to circularity,” says Jenny and continues:

“At Renewcell, we want to change the whole fashion industry. An ambitious and complex mission but necessary as the environmental impact from fashion is only growing. BESTSELLER has realised this and is now incorporating that insight into their fundamental values. They are taking action with their Fashion FWD strategy with aggressive goals and responsible actions. We are proud to contribute to BESTSELLER’s ambitious work to become a more sustainable brand.”

Exclusive collections ready for Spring 2021

Recently, BESTSELLER launched its new innovation lab, which focuses on new low-impact circular materials and production technologies, as well as circular business models. As BESTSELLER’s experimental sustainability hub, the Innovation Lab acts – most of all – as a catalyst for collaborations consisting of pilot projects, workshops, case studies and more to accelerate sustainable change.

For this collaboration, BESTSELLER brands VERO MODA, OBJECT and SELECTED have been onboard early in the process to explore and test the capabilities of Circulose®, and they have all approved the fabric’s quality.

“These materials are in exceptionally high demand, which is why we’re very pleased that we were able to secure fibres from the second batch of Circulose® ever produced. And due to the high support and professional effort from our brands included in this process, we have been able to reach an end product of excellent quality,” Camilla says.

OBJECT has found the collaboration with Renewcell to be exciting, educational and straightforward thanks to clear  communication between all parties and a willingness to share. According to OBJECT’s Sustainability Responsible Gitte Skals Hauge, the brand is keen to participate in more Innovation Lab projects in the future.

“We have set ambitious sustainability targets at OBJECT and we are therefore proud to reveal that we are amongst the first brands in BESTSELLER to make products with Circulose®,” Gitte says.

“The innovative fibre has been unbelievably popular amongst our customers. We ended up with the best kind of problem – demand outstripped the limited amount of fabric we had available. We are therefore looking forward to producing more for pre-Autumn 2021.”

The Circulose® fibres have been spun into yarns and the fabric has just been finished, ready for production. An exclusive and limited edition of styles will be available in handpicked stores worldwide in Spring 2021.