Event: H&M explores circularity further with a cutting-edge collection

Event: H&M explores circularity further with a cutting-edge collection

H&M is proud to reveal Innovation Circular Design Story: a celebration of fashion as a force for joy and a showcase of the radical potential of more circular design strategies and fabrics. Each garment challenges the visual stereotypes associated with sustainable fashion, by capturing a flamboyant high fashion spirit, a sense of youthful vigour and optimism. The collection – encompassing womenswear, menswear and accessories – marks a dynamic collaboration with the stylist Ib Kamara, who has styled the looks and campaign, and served as creative advisor for the collection, working closely with H&M’s design team.

The Innovation Circular Design Story collection is the latest addition to H&M’s Innovation Stories, a ground-breaking new sustainability initiative that focuses on forward-thinking ideas and innovative fabrications. Innovation Stories allows H&M to showcase how the company can be at the forefront of change within the fashion world. The collection marks the introduction of the Circulator, H&M’s Circular Design Tool. It is devised with the purpose of aiding H&M’s teams in creating products fit for a circular economy and is the latest step in H&M’s quest to pioneer new ways of thinking about the longevity of clothing by embracing experimentation, dialogue, questioning and trialling.

Every piece in this collection was created with the intention of maximising usage and recyclability. Pieces are versatile, built to function in multiple manners; oversized blazers can also be worn as dresses, straps can alter the fit of shirts or coats, trousers can be made wider due to adjustable zips, a ball gown has been designed as a two piece outfit instead of a dress to increase versatility and use – as a top and skirt it can be worn as separates for more occasions. These are pieces to be treasured and shared, and eventually handed down or passed on. They highlight a new way of thinking about retailer responsibility, which continues long after each garment is sold. For this reason, the design team have considered not only the look of each piece, but also the deconstruction; the way pieces can be adapted for increased reuse or disassembled for recirculation, hence the use of innovations such as dissolvable thread. Another focus has been on making items from solely one material, mono-fibre, to enable easier recycling. In keeping with the ethos of sharing and reusing, pieces from this collection can be rented from selected H&M stores in Berlin, Stockholm and Amsterdam.

Furthermore, a dynamic selection of women’s blazers were created in the H&M Stockholm atelier using preloved garments, repurposed for the collection in collaboration with H&M’s partner for garment collecting, I:CO. There are six styles in total; each made using existing pieces, reworked with peplum detailing, or frills in new, sustainable sourced, taffeta. Available in Milan, Stockholm, London, New York, Tokyo and Paris, each piece is truly one of a kind and a tribute to the possibilities of remake and upcycling.

In addition to the focus on circularity and construction, the collection is also a celebration of design and self-expression – of bright colours and eye-catching prints, of getting ready with friends, of nights out in partywear, feeling free, a moment of pleasure and escapism. It celebrates the broad range of people who buy H&M, and the different identities and characters that they all inhabit each day, when dressing themselves.

Womenswear
The womenswear is a tribute to a fearless contemporary spirit. It is an eclectic collection, to suit the many different facets of modern femininity. So just as there is dramatic volume and strong silhouettes – see dresses surrounded by a spherical spotlight of tulle or decorated with undulating frills – there is also body-con, with tight bodysuits and clingy jersey. The variety extends to the type of garments on offer: there is everything from hoodies and puffers to party pyjamas and full-sequinned gowns and capes. In prints and surfaces, there are nods to the digital world, embracing the glitchy aesthetic of tech. And yet, just as the collection looks forward, it also draws inspiration from classic elements of fashion, embracing timeless details that have survived across generations; the polka dot, bows, frills, tailoring, jacquards. These motifs are tweaked, twisted and edited for today, questioning what memories of the past we should to take into the future.

Colours are bright, demanding attention; a key story is the range of reds and pinks – soft bubblegum through to shocking pink and bright racing red. There are accents of Klein blue, and anchors of black and cream.

Accessories are elegant yet extravagant; there are gloves, cut high enough to almost reach the shoulder, chunky crystal chokers, and, in keeping with the versatility of the collection, shoes with a leg shaft that can be added to turn a heel into a thigh high boot, allowing increased usage.

Menswear
The Innovation Circular Design Story menswear collection is stylish, bold, but chic. It is a complement to the womenswear but utterly distinct; an avant-garde proposition. There is a heavy use of embellishment, print and other surface intrigue; dazzling hoodies, beaded coats and waistcoats, a faux fur coat fashioned in kaleidoscopic colours. Nothing is obvious or expected; there are sequined trousers, cut from black fabric with transparent embellishments on top to give a captivating illusion of silver. Fitted, glittering tops are crafted from recycled polyester and transparent recycled thread. A key focus is experimentation when it comes to cutting tailoring; jackets are teamed with shorts or come with an angular cut-out at the back which allows the bold prints or sparkling beads of waistcoats to shine through.

Accessories encourage self-expression, and excitement through embellishment. The collection includes beaded scarves, hoop earrings, chunky bracelets and a small handbag. Oversized hats with wide brims, in luxurious wool, complete every look.

Materials
The material research behind the Innovation Circular Design Story collection has been exhaustive and ambitious. Recycled polyesters (used on puffers, dresses and men’s blazers and shorts) come from REPREVE® Our Ocean®, a collection of fibers sourced from waste bottles at high risk of entering the seas and oceans. Cycora® by Ambercycle, a fabrication that makes use of old garments and end-of-life textile waste, is used on women’s trousers, crafted in black with strap details.
Another key fabrication used on tailoring is Eastman Naia™ Renew cellulosic fiber: produced from sustainably sourced wood pulp and hard-to-recycle waste materials, such as waste plastics and carpet fibers, that might otherwise be destined for landfills or incinerators, and using them to create new high-quality yarns. Hoodies and tops are crafted from TEXLOOP™ RCOT™, which processes cotton textile waste into recycled cotton, creating new fabric and preserving the fibre quality for the next generation of recycled materials. On shining leather-look jackets and shoes is Vegea™, an inventive vegan material made from grape skin fibers, seeds, and stalks discarded during the wine making process. Elsewhere, there is recycled wool, organic silk and ECONYL® regenerated nylon. Details are paramount; the thread used to attach glass beads is the Resortecs® smart stitch, a dissolvable sewing thread, which allows garments to be easily taken apart to facilitate material reuse when they finally reach the end of their life cycle. Other embellishments are attached via patches, so they can be removed when the garment is ready for recycling. Sequins do not feature metallic coatings, as a consideration taken to enable the potential for recyclability.

The garment-to-garment process is central message within the Innovation Circular Design Story collection, highlighting how fashion can take responsibility for the resources its using by turning clothes and textiles that would have been thrown away, into new fabric, so the loop can be closed. Some of these fabrications and techniques have been championed by H&M before, highlighting that H&M do not abandon good ideas – when they find fabrics that work they maintain the relationships, seeking to improve and push forward each season with new tests, new products, new innovations, feeding back to suppliers to try and move the industry closer to a circular economy.

“People get a picture in their head when you talk about circularity. With Innovation Circular Design Story, we wanted, to show it is possible to do a bright, fashion-focused collection that is designed with circularity in mind. We wanted to show new possibilities, and offer something hopeful.” – Ann-Sofie Johansson Creative Advisor at H&M

“This collection is for those who really love fashion. There is so much exuberance and joy encapsulated in every garment – they are all really versatile, made to be worn in many different ways and also shared, passed on and later recycled. They are pieces for people who treasure their clothing and love getting dressed up.” – Ella Soccorsi, Concept Designer at H&M

Event: Galerija Edvard

Models: Tjaša Kokalj, Jan Macarol

Client: H&M