Denim Deal seeks UK growth with launch event at LaundRe
As part of its global expansion, the Denim Deal hosted an event at London’s laundry and education hub LaundRe to encourage collaboration with UK brands, to boost signatories and to facilitate new partnerships.
Launched in 2020 as the Dutch Denim Deal, the initiative expanded globally in 2024, aiming to grow from its original mission to produce 3 million garments over a three-year period with at least 20% post-consumer recycled (POCR) cotton to 1 billion in 2030. The Deal now includes 65 signatories and partners across the globe.
As part of its remit, Denim Deal coordinates various pilots, seeking to “move the industry from assumptions to evidence-based decision-making on recycled content in denim”. These include a durability pilot, working in collaboration with French textiles institute CETI, Kipas and Ereks; a textile-to-textile pilot, turning Dutch textile waste into new denim, used by Garcia; and a POCR traceability pilot, proving recycled content from fibre to garment.
At the event in Canning Town, mills Soorty, Bossa, DNM, Advance, Bhaskar Denim, Kipas Demim and Iskur Denim showed some of their latest fabrics with 20% or more POCR cotton. Other attendees included manufacturer Demco and Marmara Hemp, Mohsin Sajid and Sadia Rafique with Endrime, and Coats.
The Deal also presented an Innovation Launchpad, with the aim of including novel technologies or start-ups in pilot projects to help drive the industry towards lower impact techniques overall. The first innovators it is supporting are ColouriZd, a yarn-dyeing technology which substantially reduces water usage and eliminates wastewater, and Infinity Blue, a start-up creating a process to extract indigo from fabric and reuse it in production.
Another of the initiative's aims is to “bust myths”, Laura Vicaria, programme director of the Denim Deal, tells Inside Denim. “Recycled cotton doesn’t mean more expensive, or lower quality," she said, adding they would love the UK to be the next hub.
“We also want to demonstrate there is business value in working in this way. Once the EPR [Extended Producer Responsibility policy] comes into place, that will be a key part of it. Businesses can demonstrate they have used post-consumer cotton and get some money back. Also, with climate change very much here, those that are building raw material roadmaps internally will see the price of virgin cotton will fluctuate, but you don’t have that with post-consumer cotton – it can even be cheaper, depending on where you get it.”
The Deal can include brands and retailers of any size, and it does not have to be every line that contains the POCR, said Nicolas Prophte, co-founder. The idea is to work together to create demand which will drive the recycling infrastructure and lower costs. “There is an opportunity in the UK,” he said. “Industry is ready, the fabrics are ready. We want the brands to let us know how we can work together.”
Read more about the Global Denim Deal in our Features section.
Image from left: Laura Vicaria, Romain Narcy, Iona Phipps, Nicolas Prophte and Salli Deighton.
