The Renewal Workshop
Renewed Apparel
The easiest and most fashionable way to save the planet
The RENEWAL WORKSHOP website is live as of January 1. Check out all the great apparel at even better prices. Don't feed the landfills
Photos courtesy of The Renewal Workshop
That new Ibex puffy arrives in the mail and the zipper is broken. Back it goes to the manufacture and within a few weeks a new one arrives. And the old one, with the broken zipper? It goes to a warehouse somewhere and eventually into the landfill.
This article by Eco Watch states that the fashion industry is the second largest polluter on Earth after the oil industry. Something to the tune of 12.7million tons of apparel end up in the landfills each year. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, 15.1 million tons of textile waste was generated in 2013, of which 12.8 million tons were discarded.
This article by Eco Watch states that the fashion industry is the second largest polluter on Earth after the oil industry. Something to the tune of 12.7million tons of apparel end up in the landfills each year. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, 15.1 million tons of textile waste was generated in 2013, of which 12.8 million tons were discarded.
The Renewal Workshop(RW) out of Cascade Locks, Oregon, is working on changing that. In November RW will launch its website and online store where Renewed Apparel will be available for purchase.
“It will be like buying a certified, pre-owned car,” Jeff Denby, co-founder of Renewal Workshop, said.
‘End of use’ apparel, garments too defected and damaged to be sold to consumers, from Ibex, Prana, Toad and Co, Indigenous, and Mountain Khakis will undergo state of the art repairs. At the Oregon workshop each garment will be individually inspected, graded, custom-repaired and cleaned- renewed, and resold. Industrial sewists (there is no gender-neutral term for seamstress) will repair buttons, zippers, snaps, and tears.
The repaired pieces are one-of-kind and always certified to the quality standards of the original brand.
The entire RW enterprise is environmentally conscious. They use a TERSUS cleaning system on all the apparel. It’s a waterless, closed-loop textile cleaning solution using recycled liquid carbon dioxide. TERSUS cleans and decontaminates technical textiles and garments to a hospital grade.
“It has the most incredible cleaning capabilities,” Denby said. “It handles smoke damage, mold; it takes out any kind of stain. It’s a hospital grade clean without damaging fibers or affecting waterproofing or resistance”.
The machine is 10x10x10 unit that took a month to build and another month to assemble. The Indiegogo campaign that RW ran this summer funded the machines and the setting up of the factory.
Trims, labels, and zippers are all bluesign® approved. bluesign® system partners only use approved chemicals and components according to the high standards. They have to go through rigorous on-site tests in order to verify compliance with bluesign® criteria- from the bluesign® website.
“It will be like buying a certified, pre-owned car,” Jeff Denby, co-founder of Renewal Workshop, said.
‘End of use’ apparel, garments too defected and damaged to be sold to consumers, from Ibex, Prana, Toad and Co, Indigenous, and Mountain Khakis will undergo state of the art repairs. At the Oregon workshop each garment will be individually inspected, graded, custom-repaired and cleaned- renewed, and resold. Industrial sewists (there is no gender-neutral term for seamstress) will repair buttons, zippers, snaps, and tears.
The repaired pieces are one-of-kind and always certified to the quality standards of the original brand.
The entire RW enterprise is environmentally conscious. They use a TERSUS cleaning system on all the apparel. It’s a waterless, closed-loop textile cleaning solution using recycled liquid carbon dioxide. TERSUS cleans and decontaminates technical textiles and garments to a hospital grade.
“It has the most incredible cleaning capabilities,” Denby said. “It handles smoke damage, mold; it takes out any kind of stain. It’s a hospital grade clean without damaging fibers or affecting waterproofing or resistance”.
The machine is 10x10x10 unit that took a month to build and another month to assemble. The Indiegogo campaign that RW ran this summer funded the machines and the setting up of the factory.
Trims, labels, and zippers are all bluesign® approved. bluesign® system partners only use approved chemicals and components according to the high standards. They have to go through rigorous on-site tests in order to verify compliance with bluesign® criteria- from the bluesign® website.
RW renews everything from outerwear to casual shirts to pants to dresses received in bulk from their brand partners. Restored garments are labeled with both the original manufacturer’s label and the Renewed Apparel label and given a one-year guarantee.
“The brand approves a quality guide. Customers can feel confident buying product because Prana, for example, has certified us,” Denby said. “Picture a bar code for every product, we collect data on it as it goes through the renewal process. The data is used to describe the product. The customer will know everything we know about it.”
It took Nicole Bassett, former Director of Sustainability for Prana, about two years of working on the business model, and that was after years of frustration about the waste, to finalize the Renewal Workshop plan. She got longtime apparel industry colleague Jeff Denby, co-founder of PACT, to come onto the project with her.
“We imagine a world where resources are used wisely and clothing is continuously remade,” Bassett said.
The concern about the end-of-use waste was a common grievance among peers at different apparel companies. When they asked around they got a universal ‘Yes! We don’t know what to do with this stuff.” It sits in warehouses and eventually goes to landfills or gets incinerated.
At the 2015 Outdoor Retailer Tradeshow the duo approached ten brands and told them “We want your end of use waste.” Denby says. The brands’ responses were “Are you kidding! You’re going to do this?” Yes. “If you’re going to do this we will provide you with product.”
“The brand approves a quality guide. Customers can feel confident buying product because Prana, for example, has certified us,” Denby said. “Picture a bar code for every product, we collect data on it as it goes through the renewal process. The data is used to describe the product. The customer will know everything we know about it.”
It took Nicole Bassett, former Director of Sustainability for Prana, about two years of working on the business model, and that was after years of frustration about the waste, to finalize the Renewal Workshop plan. She got longtime apparel industry colleague Jeff Denby, co-founder of PACT, to come onto the project with her.
“We imagine a world where resources are used wisely and clothing is continuously remade,” Bassett said.
The concern about the end-of-use waste was a common grievance among peers at different apparel companies. When they asked around they got a universal ‘Yes! We don’t know what to do with this stuff.” It sits in warehouses and eventually goes to landfills or gets incinerated.
At the 2015 Outdoor Retailer Tradeshow the duo approached ten brands and told them “We want your end of use waste.” Denby says. The brands’ responses were “Are you kidding! You’re going to do this?” Yes. “If you’re going to do this we will provide you with product.”
RW offers their brand partners a zero-landfill guarantee.
“Instead of the company paying landfill fees we manage the end of use. We sort through the stock to determine what can be renewed and what is just too far gone. Garments are only recycled as a last resort,” Denby said.
“There is a big need to up-cycle, recycle, and renew,” Toad & Co’s Marketing Manager, Steve McCann, said.
The products RW uses are not fast-fashion but come from companies who value long-lifed products.
“The normal standard of our products is to last a long time,” McCann said. “Through the RW we can continue the life-cycle.”
If a shirt is returned because the button fell off weeks after purchase the consumer gets a totally new shirt and the button-less shirt goes to RW where they sew a new button on, add the RW label, and resell it. If the product has a tear that is too large to repair the fabric is up-cycled to make a new product like a backpack or other bag, McCann explained.
This just isn’t possible with the materials used in fast-fashion.
Wearing the RW label is also a badge of honor; it’s a way of showing commitment to sustainable apparel.
Denby recently travelled to the Toad & Co’s headquarters in Santa Barbara, Ca to meet with the staff there and explain what RW does. Denby played a game with them, McCann explained, where designers were given renewed apparel and they tried to guess what had been wrong with it.
“You couldn’t tell,” McCann said.
With the mid-November launch of the RW website Renewed Apparel will be available for purchase through RW. Eventually the original companies hope to sell Renewed Apparel in their retail shops and websites. Having a merchandise collection in other retailers is also a longer-term possibility.
For Denby the long-term goal is the creation of a circular economy in the apparel industry. RW would be the aggregator of the industry by managing all end-of-use apparel.
RW will continue pilots with other brands looking to create more partnerships. They will look at products to determine if they are renewable and then work through partnership agreements with the brands.
One way to get ahold of Renewed Apparel is through a $79 yearly membership. The membership will provide customers with free shipping for the year, a $25 credit in their account, early access to new items, and special membership deals. "Everything we sell is a one-off so great items don’t stick around for long - so membership has its benefits because we’ll send special emails to members so they know when great stuff has arrived and they can be the first to get it," Denby said.
“Instead of the company paying landfill fees we manage the end of use. We sort through the stock to determine what can be renewed and what is just too far gone. Garments are only recycled as a last resort,” Denby said.
“There is a big need to up-cycle, recycle, and renew,” Toad & Co’s Marketing Manager, Steve McCann, said.
The products RW uses are not fast-fashion but come from companies who value long-lifed products.
“The normal standard of our products is to last a long time,” McCann said. “Through the RW we can continue the life-cycle.”
If a shirt is returned because the button fell off weeks after purchase the consumer gets a totally new shirt and the button-less shirt goes to RW where they sew a new button on, add the RW label, and resell it. If the product has a tear that is too large to repair the fabric is up-cycled to make a new product like a backpack or other bag, McCann explained.
This just isn’t possible with the materials used in fast-fashion.
Wearing the RW label is also a badge of honor; it’s a way of showing commitment to sustainable apparel.
Denby recently travelled to the Toad & Co’s headquarters in Santa Barbara, Ca to meet with the staff there and explain what RW does. Denby played a game with them, McCann explained, where designers were given renewed apparel and they tried to guess what had been wrong with it.
“You couldn’t tell,” McCann said.
With the mid-November launch of the RW website Renewed Apparel will be available for purchase through RW. Eventually the original companies hope to sell Renewed Apparel in their retail shops and websites. Having a merchandise collection in other retailers is also a longer-term possibility.
For Denby the long-term goal is the creation of a circular economy in the apparel industry. RW would be the aggregator of the industry by managing all end-of-use apparel.
RW will continue pilots with other brands looking to create more partnerships. They will look at products to determine if they are renewable and then work through partnership agreements with the brands.
One way to get ahold of Renewed Apparel is through a $79 yearly membership. The membership will provide customers with free shipping for the year, a $25 credit in their account, early access to new items, and special membership deals. "Everything we sell is a one-off so great items don’t stick around for long - so membership has its benefits because we’ll send special emails to members so they know when great stuff has arrived and they can be the first to get it," Denby said.
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We are looking forward to the official launch of the Renewal Workshop in mid-November and will be sure to update readers when you can go to the site and shop. Peak |
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