Latest news with #Lunaform
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Nudie Jeans Adds Regenerative Organic Cotton; Finds Creative Solutions for Flawed Jeans
Nudie Jeans is proving that its circular strategy and business model can remain strong despite ongoing challenges facing the industry in 2024. The Swedish brand released its 2024 Sustainability Report on Thursday, providing a look at how the circular company handles materials, production and products. More from Sourcing Journal Material World: Is Lunaform Ready to Wear? Yes. Ready to Scale? Also Yes. Icon Denim Drops Organic Cotton Jeans New Regional Life Cycle Assessment Touts Organic Cotton Farming in India In 2024, Nudie Jeans AB sales increased six percent from 2023 totaling SEK 511 million (approximately $52.5 million). Revenue from Nudie's own channels (e-commerce and retail stores) grew 12 percent, accounting for 66 percent of total net revenue. Though wholesale revenue decreased six percent in 2024 compared 2025, Nudie said it expects 'modest growth' in the channel in 2025 and a stronger increase onward. Europe continues to be the brand's biggest region with 61.7 percent of sales. Australia (17.9 percent) North America (12.8 percent) and Asia (7.6 percent) accounted for the rest. Circular business models accounted for one percent of the company's total revenue. This includes sales of re-use jeans and products made with recycled post-consumer Nudie Jeans fiber sourced from jeans collected by the brand's Re-use program. In 2024, the brand sold 3,513 pairs of previously owned Nudie jeans. Nudie remains dedicated to using organic cotton in its production. Organic and/or Fairtrade and recycled cotton accounted for 93 percent of the brand's total fiber use last year. However, the brand said exploring new fabrics and fibers with suppliers to decrease negative impact on climate and nature is also part of its design process. Most of the cotton Nudie uses for denim comes from two suppliers in Turkey's Aegean region, Akasya and Egecot. Both companies collaborate with farmers who cultivate cotton under certified organic standards and, more recently, regenerative organic practices. This has allowed Nudie to introduce regenerative organic cotton in select styles. In 2024 the brand finalized the development of its first garments made from regenerative organic cotton. More regenerative organic cotton styles will be added in future collections. Nudie made less denim fabrics with recycled cotton, but production is expected to increase again in 2025. Approximately 6,000 pieces of second choice jeans—or jeans with defects from manufacturing—were used to make new denim fabrics. The garments were mechanically recycled by Nudie's Tunisian suppliers Denim Authority and Swift Denim. The brand also cut the legs of 550 second choice jeans from its Italian production, turning them into shorts. Repair continues to be a focus. Nudie ended 2024 with 33 repair shops in 20 cities and 15 repair partners in 14 cities. Repair partners accounted for more than 10 percent of the yearly total. The number of jeans Nudie repaired in 2024 declined to 68,342 pairs, down from 73,368 in 2023. However, new external partnerships and funding for a research and innovations project from the Swedish Energy Agency aim to scale and develop its circular business model overall. Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Biomaterials firm shakes up leadership as it preps for commercial growth
This story was originally published on Fashion Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily Fashion Dive newsletter. Biomaterials startup Gozen has named a new CEO as it prepares for 'its next stage of commercial growth,' the company said in a news release last week. Ece Gözen, the company's co-founder, is stepping down from the CEO role to become chief innovation officer and creative director. In her place, Sedef Uncu Aki will become CEO. Uncu Aki was most recently the startup's chief product officer, a role she's held since January 2024. Prior to joining Gozen, she worked at denim brand Orta Anadolu and Bossa. The leadership changes come a few months after the biomaterials company opened a 40,000-square-foot production facility in Turkey to expand the reach of Gozen's leather alternative material Lunaform at scale. The new leadership structure will support the ongoing rollout of Lunaform following the adoption of the material by brand partners Beymen Collection and Kering-owned Balenciaga, Gozen said in the release. Gozen was founded in 2022, and it made its debut during Balenciaga's Paris Fashion Week runway show in the fall of 2023. The startup is now looking to deliver Lunaform across product industries in mass, premium and luxury segments, per the release. Pelin Gözen, Gozen's other co-founder and chief operating officer, will remain in her role and continue to lead the company's product roadmap and operations. Po Bronson, managing director of SOSV, a Gozen investor, said the new team structure gives the startup the ability to scale with focus and the ability to harness its creative capabilities, 'exactly what's needed to continue growing the adoption of Lunaform.' Gozen's other investors include Happiness Capital, Accelr8 and Astor Management. Recommended Reading Sustainable materials firm Modern Meadow names new CEO Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
EXCLUSIVE: Sedef Uncu Aki Named CEO at Next Gen Materials Company Gozen
Next-gen materials and biotechnology company Gozen has undergone a leadership switch as it preps for its next phase of expansion. Sedef Uncu Aki has been named chief executive officer, effective immediately. Founder and current CEO Ece Gözen will transition into chief innovation officer and creative director. The team will work closely together to steer Gozen's growth phase. More from WWD EXCLUSIVE: Textile Recycler Recover, Intradeco Enter Joint Venture for El Salvador Facility EXCLUSIVE: Balenciaga Bolsters Executive Ranks With New Deputy CEO Gucci to Unveil Cruise 2026 Collection at Historic Brand Archive 'Now our facility is up and running and Lunaform is in commercial use, we've moved from start-up to scale-up,' Gözen told WWD. 'This enables me to focus on pushing Gozen forward through design and innovation, working hands-on with partners, and unearthing the full creative potential of Lunaform.' Gozen is behind the Lunaform material made famous by the sold-out Balenciaga Maxi Bathrobe Coat, which debuted on the runway in the spring 2024 collection. It also launched a dress collaboration with Beymen Group in April. Aki will oversee the delivery of Lunaform across the mass, premium and luxury segments and focus on driving commercialization for the material. Fashion will remain the primary category, and the company will seek to expand into automotive, interiors and consumer electronics. 'Our shared leadership reflects our commitment to Gozen's vision and our ambition to scale Lunaform globally. That means structure, systems and commercial focus — areas in which I bring experience, playbooks and many lessons learned,' she said. Aki steps into the role with extensive experience in textile technology and management and decades in the denim industry with successive roles at Turkish manufacturers Bossa Denim and Orta Anadolu working with brands including Stella McCartney and H&M, among others. She joined Gozen last year as chief product officer. Gozen opened a 40,000-square-foot production facility in Turkey earlier this year, which can produce 150,000 square feet of its grown-cellulose material. That facility can scale up to 1 million square feet, which would translate into about 40,000 garments. The company's current headcount is 20. Aki will focus on building and refining sales channels to maximize market penetration, creating long-term partnerships, as well as streamline internal operations. 'This means developing the right infrastructure, talent and digital capabilities to support scalable production and innovation. By designing an agile internal operating system, we can ensure that we're not only meeting customer needs with precision, but also driving strong financial outcomes,' she said. Before founding the company, Gözen trained as a designer and received Vogue Italia's Most Visionary Designer award under her own womenswear label in 2012. The new role will build on that experience, with Gözen steering the team's creative leadership and design strategy. That will entail collaborating with key partner design teams to help them understand the technical benchmarks of working with the product, which Gözen said is on par with or surpasses the strength of animal leather. 'We are doubling down on design. Our identity — being design-led from Day One — is not just how we create our materials, it's a key part of how we grow their adoption,' Aki said. 'As its inventor, Ece [Gözen] understands the potential of Lunaform better than anyone else. She intuitively 'gets' how to excite designers and work with them to turn Lunaform into products that push boundaries and meet functional needs.' 'One of Lunaform's most exciting features is how it behaves in the hands of designers. Thanks to its unique memory and structure, we can experiment live with design teams — shaping and forming the material without sewing or gluing. This opens up new forms of artistic expression and enables more efficient, holistic design processes. These moments of co-creation are at the core of our brand,' Gözen said. More than 50 brands are now actively prototyping with Lunaform. 'We are working with them closely to fast-track sampling and help them translate prototypes into market-ready products,' Gözen added. The company raised $3.3 million in seed funding in 2023, with San Francisco-based deep-tech venture capital firm SOSV as part of the round. The company is 'strongly positioned' but remains open to partnering with additional investors. 'With Ece driving innovation and Sedef steering growth, Gozen is led by a creator shaping its vision and a builder at the heart of its operations,' said SOSV managing director Po Bronson. 'The new team structure strengthens Gozen's ability to scale with focus and to harness its creative capabilities — exactly what's needed to continue growing the adoption of Lunaform.' Best of WWD Walmart Calls California Waste Dumping Lawsuit 'Unjustified' Year in Review: Sustainability's Biggest Controversies of 2021 Year in Review: Sustainability's New Strides Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
08-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
If You Build It, Will They Come? How Material Innovators Decide Where to Break Commercial Ground.
Syre has picked its first commercial site. While the H&M Group-backed 'circular' polyester manufacturer is already in the middle of constructing a 10,000-metric-ton blueprint plant in Cedar Creek in North Carolina, where its textile-to-textile recycling technology was first honed, Syre was always thinking big—and bigger. More from Sourcing Journal Material World: Is Lunaform Ready to Wear? Yes. Ready to Scale? Also Yes. Uncaged Innovation Invites Designers to Elevate the Future Material World: Circ Secures 5-Year Partner, Sodra's Tannin Arms Call On Friday, the Stockholm-headquartered firm announced that it has signed a memorandum of understanding with the northern Vietnamese province of Binh Dinh—the first step in raising from the ground a $700 million-$1 billion 'gigascale' factory capable of pumping out up to 250,000 metric tons of PET chips for spinning into yarn. The idea is to create a network of 12 setups worldwide that would collectively pump out more than 3 million metric tons of the same within a decade, reducing the fashion industry's reliance on both virgin polyester and its bottle-to-textile recycled alternative. Syre had narrowed down the options to two industrial parks that would be able to supply the renewable energy it desired: one near Ocean City in Hanoi that is replete with solar farms and the other in the Nhon Hoi Economic Zone near the coast in Binh Dinh, where windmills are in abundance. But Vietnam is also smack dab in the middle of the broader textile industry in Southeast Asia, 'so you have the natural value chain of the textile industry in that region,' said CEO Dennis Nobelius. 'When you speak with the bigger brands about where they would like to see the plant, Vietnam comes up quite quickly and quite high on that list.' While Syre and other innovators in the textile-to-textile recycled polyester space —think the likes of Ambercycle, Circ and Reju—all have ambitions of eventual world domination, which is necessary to cut down on the time, cost and emissions it'll take to ship things around, nailing that first location is crucial because it informs everything that follows. But it also isn't easy to figure out. Most of the clothing waste that will serve as their feedstock hails from the global North. The mills and factories that would take Syre or Circ's chips, repolymerize them into polyester threads that are then spun into yarn for weaving or knitting into fabric, are in the global South, mainly in Asia. So are the cut-and-sew facilities that would turn them into new garments, restarting the cycle. 'Site selection almost makes my head explode, because it's like building a bridge,' said Shay Sethi, CEO of Ambercycle, which is based in Los Angeles. 'There are so many ways to build a bridge, but at the end of the day, a bridge has to be built. I also think there's no real wrong answer. There are pros and cons to every location.' Ambercycle plans to start constructing its first plant this year, though many things, such as size and product volumes, are still TBD, at least publicly. But the factory will likely be situated somewhere in the Asia-Pacific region, with initial production poised to begin circa 2027. While Europe and North America may have a lot of government grant programs, Sethi and Moby Ahmed, his co-founder, haven't been able to find a single example of a materials company that found success with any of them. And despite President Donald Trump's tariff-fueled efforts to reshore manufacturing in the United States, the large bulk of apparel is still made overseas, making Asia a more attractive location. But Sethi and Ahmed, who are both of South Asian descent, feel most comfortable doing business in Asia, which Sethi said might be the most important consideration of all. But even then, there can be complications. If they build in India, for instance, would Ahmed, who is Pakistani, be able to obtain a visa to enter the country? If they pick Pakistan, would Sethi have trouble because he is of Indian heritage? And when the plant gets built, will there be enough capacity—not to mention the right personnel—to deliver and manage Ambercycle's chemistry at scale? The location's accessibility is also something that needs to be weighed. Sethi looked at a site that was perfect except that it was in the middle of nowhere, which meant it would be difficult for brands and retailers to visit the factory without getting into the business of paving roads and building a landing strip. And since some Ambercycle staffers would be relocating from Los Angeles, another question that is frequently batted around is whether they can see themselves living there. 'It's really easy to make a decision from an Excel spreadsheet, but it's totally different when you're at these sites talking to people that you're working with that are from that region,' Sethi said. 'I guess the Ambercycle culture has always been, you know, we really take our time and try and understand everything before we say, 'O.K., this is what we're going to do. This is how we're going to do it.' And then if one thing works, then you could do another thing and then another thing.' That each country has its own idiosyncrasies—regulatory and otherwise—that can throw additional wrenches. Bangladesh and Vietnam, for instance, don't allow used clothing imports. One of Syre's potential challenges with Vietnam is that domestic demand can only supply 10 percent of the upward of 300,000 metric tons of post-consumer material that it will need to keep its machines churning. Syre and the Vietnamese government plan to pilot a mechanism that gives the company the license to bring in textiles from surrounding countries. 'That, along with the green energy, is a key criterion,' Nobelius said. 'If those can't be provided, we would probably have to look at a different country. But we're trying to make clear that we are in a different mode or industry. There is no fear of bringing in used clothing and dumping or re-selling it.' Like Ambercycle, Circ is getting closer to revealing its first site, likely within the next few months. There will probably be a Plan A and a Plan B, 'just in case something goes wrong with the first,' said Luke Henning, the Virginia-based company's chief commercial officer. In both cases, what's paramount is whether the site is technically viable, which also incidentally makes it financeable. Is there enough land? What will logistics look like? 'Because logistics can kill you,' said Henning, drawing from his previous experience working with biofuels. 'For example, corn is superexpensive in the Carolinas but supercheap in the Midwest. It is cheaper to get corn into the Carolinas from South America than it is from Ohio because the rail links there are so expensive that it's cheaper to send it by boat. But you can't send it in by boat from an American port to an American port because it's too expensive, so you literally have to import it.' For Henning, then, the question of proximity is not as important as the logistics options that are available, with shipping generally being the least expensive and most efficient, followed by rail and road. And that goes both in and out, since the factory would then want to send its output, whether chips or thread or yarn, to the next producer and then the next. In a perfect scenario, an innovator would have ready and easy logistical access to both the raw material and to its fiber producers. Because that is rarely the case, the next best thing is to only freight goods with the highest value density. 'Ideally want to be closer to the waste in some way, just because that tends to be the thing you want to ship the least distance because it has the lowest value,' he said. 'So your logistics adds a higher proportional cost onto feedstock than it does onto the output.' All that ties into the investability of the project. Certain venture capital funds might have a geographical mandate to only spend money within the United States or Europe. Other investors might have concerns about the political stability of a location or its legal environment. Even if some funds have the ability to make exceptions, 'then you've just made your life harder because you're seeking an exception from their established mandate,' Henning said. 'It depends on what your end goal or end game is,' said Patrik Fisk, CEO of French 'materials regeneration' company Reju, which is beginning with textile-to-textile recycled polyester, or simply Reju polyester, before it explores other materials like cotton or nylon. Reju's Frankfurt demonstration plant is already up and running. Its next act is establishing two 'megafactories,' one in the United States and one elsewhere in Europe, that can generate 100,000 metric tons of polymer apiece. It's partly because those geographies are seemingly endless wellsprings of textile waste that Reju wants to use those initial sites to make a statement about why fashion's linear system of take-make-dispose needs to change. The availability of green energy and water for its steam-dependent chemical processes is another factor, as is the infrastructure for the advanced chemistry that it dabbles in. Where all the 'stars align' becomes fairly limited all things considered, Fisk said. Despite pockets of progress in Asia, for instance, many countries—Vietnam included—are still highly reliant on coal. 'The other thing we should ask ourselves is, where do you want to take care of the waste?' he said. 'So are you attempting to ship the waste to Asia, make your stuff there and then ship the garments back? Or are you actually trying to solve two things at once? Which is taking care of the post-consumer waste in the region and making it into a new product in the region?' All that might be moot in a matter of years. Eventually, Reju envisions at least 20 megafactories dotted across the globe, allowing it to seize a potential market share of roughly 25 percent of textile-to-textile recycled materials. 'It takes three years to build one unit, and one unit isn't going to be enough for even one brand,' Fisk said. 'So let's start somewhere where we can also control and make sure that we are proving out the model of circularity before we start trying to make this into a commodity. This will not be a commodity coming out of the gate. This is going to be a new product coming out of the gate.'
Yahoo
20-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
The EU Wants Brands to Pay for Textile Waste
PARIS — The European Union has moved one step closer to regulating textile waste — and making brands pay for it. Textile producers, both based in or importing into the EU via e-commerce, would hold brands responsible for the entire life cycle of their products. That means they would be required to fund the collection, sorting and recycling of their products through extended producer responsibility (EPR) programs. More from WWD Canada Goose and Marchon Debut Their First Functional Eyewear Collection EXCLUSIVE: Biomaterial Company Gozen Scales Up Lunaform Production With New Factory AI, Tariffs, MoCRA: What to Expect From PCPC's 2025 Beauty Collective Summit The legislation would see fees calculated based on the volume of quickly disposed-of clothing a brand puts into the European market. Negotiators had fast-fashion brands and ultra-fast e-commerce companies in their sights in the preliminary agreement reached Wednesday. Ultra-fast-fashion online retailers such as Shein and Temu would be subject to the same obligations as traditional brick-and-mortar brands, but their direct shipping models could create a new layer of enforcement challenges. The new provisions are meant to 'ensure that producers contribute to the effective separate collection of textiles they produce,' said lead negotiator Anna Zalewska. The EU generates 12.6 million tons of textile waste a year and imported 4 billion e-commerce ultra-fast-fashion packages in 2024. The agreement is expected to be fully adopted and then advanced for a final vote. Companies would have 30 months from when the directive takes effect to have their programs in place, while small businesses of under 10 employees would have an additional year. The EU agreement on targeting fast fashion comes as legislation targeting cheap imports stalled in France. Widely called the 'anti-fast-fashion' bill, the legislation was designed to target companies that import large volumes, such as Shein and Temu. It would have created a penalty of up to 10 euros for the most polluting disposable brands, as well as established a ban on advertising for these types of companies. The bill had been passed by France's lower house National Assembly in March of last year and had been expected to be taken up by the Senate on March 26, but disappeared from the calendar without explanation. The move followed Shein recruiting former French interior minister Christophe Castaner to its social and environmental responsibility committee last December. On Wednesday, a group of politicians and industry professionals highlighted the timing, calling it a 'national scandal.' In a statement the group, including Vestiaire Collective cofounder and chief executive officer Fanny Moizant, French Federation of Women's Ready-to-Wear president Yann Rivoallan, Union of Fashion and Clothing Industries president Pierre-François Le Louet, along with French assembly member Anne-Cécile Violland and senator Sylvie Valente Le Hir, condemned the move. The group said that cheap imports have 'come at the expense of French businesses and communities' as former high street stalwarts including Camaïeu, Kookai, Naf Naf and Pimkie have gone into administration. 'We call on decision-makers to seize this unique opportunity to write this law into history as an essential turning point towards a more responsible fashion industry,' the group continued, appealing to legislators to revive the bill. In Brussels Thursday, the Circular Fashion Federation held a conference to address what it sees as shortcomings in the current EU legislation, including the exemption of direct clothing imports of under 150 euros from customs charges, the model used by Shein and Temu. The CFF called on the EU to 'level the playing field' to promote circular products. Speaking on stage, Mikael Garellic, trade affairs officer for textile, clothing, leather and footwear at the EU Directorate General for Internal Market, said that the bloc imported 83 billion euros of clothing in 2023. Eighty percent of those imports originate in three countries, dominated by China, with Bangladesh and Turkey following. 'The high level of imports and over-capacity in some of our trading partners creates pressure,' he said. Without a level playing field, or additional market incentives, companies that use circular textiles are stalled or have gone bankrupt, he said, posing a key challenge for the development of the sector. The CFF's manifesto called for key structural changes, including ending the 150-euro exemption for ultra-fast fashion and to change the current taxes on secondhand products to equalize prices and make them more competitive. The policy paper also called for a clear definition of companies that are considered ultra-fast fashion based on the quantity of items they put on the market, the time to market, the frequency and intensity of promotions, and those companies that have 'excessively low' prices. Workers' rights should also be a key criteria, they added. Recycling trade association EURIC president Mariska Boer added that consumption of textiles in Europe is expected to grow from 2.7 million tons a year in 2025 to 5.5 million tons by 2030. The influx of cheap and poor-quality clothing is flooding the market and creates a double bind for waste management: both filling bins with textiles that are of such poor quality they cannot be reused, and also undercutting even secondhand clothing on price. Boer said that the continued increase in textile volumes and lack of true textile-to-textile recycling are major stumbling blocks for any solution at scale. 'EPR is not a silver bullet. It is not going to make our industry circular,' she said. Even reuse of clothing is 'still a linear system' resulting in eventual waste that is currently exported. The textiles that are currently recycled are generally post-industrial such as offcuts discarded in the manufacturing process, and not clothing. Boer called for commitments on using post-consumer waste in new garments. 'There needs to be a willingness on the side of the producers, maybe a little bit pushed by legislation, to really uptake and commit to using recycled textile content, because then it will also make sense to collect those discarded second, third, fourth-hand clothes,' she said. Without putting clothing waste back into the supply chain recycling will continue to lack a business model for companies to stay afloat. Panelists called for additional funding, particularly for start-ups, and stronger enforcement of the existing rules. Fairly Made founder and co-chief executive officer Camille Le Gal said that clear labeling and transparency would help brands better track their supply chains and help educate consumers. It led to pushback from audience members who believed that would cause an undue burden for small businesses, though Le Gal held up the example of France's labeling system as a viable model. Chloé Ridel, member of European Parliament from France, addressed the common arguments against taxation — that it will raise prices for the average consumer and kill jobs in developing countries. 'It's not by delegating our production of textiles to Bangladesh or China that we are going to develop those countries. We are going to enrich big businesses taking advantage of the poor workers there, but we are not going to develop those countries by letting fast-fashion industry industries bloom there,' she said. Instead the EU should fund infrastructure, health and educational programs. Other panelists highlighted the need to promote the European textile industry, including linen and wool, to be more competitive in the global marketplace. Saskia Bricmont, member of the European Parliament from Belgium, addressed the U.S.-led global pushback on ESG, or environmental, social and governance, that is seeing companies withdraw from their previous pledges. She emphasized the bloc should keep its environmental commitments, outlined in an overarching framework called the Green Deal. 'Along with the industry, we have to keep pushing the [European] Commission and all the political groups to act together, because there will be no economic competitiveness of the European Union without circular economy, without sustainability,' she said. 'The Green Deal is the precondition of sound economy for the EU, especially now in the current geopolitical context.' Best of WWD Walmart Calls California Waste Dumping Lawsuit 'Unjustified' Year in Review: Sustainability's Biggest Controversies of 2021 Year in Review: Sustainability's New Strides
