- M&S joined The Jeans Redesign, a project led by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, in 2021 and this is the first collection that has been produced to meet the guidelines for recycled content, safe chemistry, material sourcing and recyclability
- The M&S Jeans Redesign capsule collection includes five styles for the whole family, with jeans available across womenswear, menswear and kidswear, exclusively on M&S.com
- The capsule collection is part of M&S’s wider commitment to offer more sustainable denim and pledge to become a net zero Scope 3 business by 2040
Today M&S, the nation’s no.1 denim retailer, which sells 1 in 10 jeans in the UK, has unveiled its first capsule collection as part of The Jeans Redesign. The new range has been responsibly sourced to meet the project’s guidelines set out by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and co-developed with over 80 denim experts.
M&S joined the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s Jeans Redesign Project in 2021 and this is the first capsule collection that has been produced to meet the guidelines. Priced from £18, M&S’s Jeans Redesign capsule collection offers something for the whole family with styles available across womenswear, menswear and kidswear in best-selling shapes.
The five-piece capsule collection has been designed to be fit for a circular economy - made to be used more, made to be made again and made from safe and recycled or renewable materials. The styles have maximised the use of easily recycled and renewable materials and are made with organic cotton, including a minimum of 25% recycled cotton.
Plus, the garments have removed unnecessary components, such as metal rivets, that hamper the recycling process - meaning that when jeans are recycled*, more of the fabric can be successfully remade into new garments. The styles have also been rigorously tested to ensure that they still look and feel great after 30 washes.
Substantiality Principles
In addition to The Jeans Redesign capsule collection, last year M&S launched new sustainability standards across its entire hero product category of denim. Since then, M&S has continued to make changes to each stage of the development process, from reducing water consumption and chemical impact to increase the use of sustainable fibres. The retailer is sharing this information with customers through its iconic Look Behind the Label campaign. Currently M&S’s windows include a sticker with a QR code that customers can scan to find out more about M&S’s sustainability principles for denim.
Collaboration for Circularity
The Ellen MacArthur Foundation is just one of the many partners M&S works with to address the ongoing challenges of manufacturing denim. The retailer continues to work with Jeanologia, the leader in sustainable finishing technologies, to ensure its entire denim range meets its sustainable denim principles. This is all part of M&S’s wider commitment to becoming a net zero Scope 3 business across its entire supply chain and products by 2040 with collaboration being key to achieving this.
M&S Family Matters Index
According to the latest M&S Family Matters Index, the environment remains a top concern for consumers post-COP26, as 60% make an effort to educate themselves and more people change the clothing and food they buy. Nearly six in ten customers (58%) say it is important that the shops they buy from are making their products as environmentally sustainable as possible and 72% agree we should be making our clothes last longer (up 2% since August 2021).
Monique Leeuwenburgh – Director of Sourcing for M&S Clothing & Home, commented: “As an own brand retailer we’re uniquely positioned to work with our long-standing suppliers and partners on new and better ways of doing things. Denim is a staple clothing product and more sustainable denim really matters to us and to our customers. Our latest M&S Family Matters Index highlighted that the environment and the impact that clothing choices have on the planet is a top concern for our customers. Our Jeans Redesign capsule collection has been created with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s guidelines and offers customers the confidence their purchase is not only stylish, quality and great value – but also created with circularity in mind.”
Laura Balmond - Fashion Initiative Lead at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation commented: “The Jeans Redesign project demonstrates that it is possible to make products fit for a circular economy, today. We’re pleased to see the solutions identified by M&S and the growing understanding of the challenges that must be addressed to achieve the vision of a circular economy for fashion at scale."
The Jeans Redesign five-piece capsule collection is available exclusively on M&S.com for next day delivery or click & collect to over 700 M&S locations.
- ENDS –
*For customers looking to recycle old garments, M&S continue to offer its well-known clothes recycling scheme Shwopping, in partnership with Oxfam. The scheme has helped customers to recycle 35 million items since 2008. Every time customers place pre-loved clothes in one of the Shwop boxes in store, they’re resold, reused or recycled, so absolutely nothing goes to waste, working towards a circular economy.
For further information, please contact:
Note to Editors:
Our Approach to Sustainability
- When you shop with M&S customers can be confident it’s part of our robust approach to sustainable fashion – we source with care so nothing we make goes to waste, we protect the planet for tomorrow, and we operate as a retailer where everyone can belong and get on.
- For every M&S product, our clear goal is to only use responsibly sourced raw materials and we ensure that 100% of the cotton for M&S clothing is more sustainably sourced; including organic, recycled and BCI Cotton.
- For over twenty years our Global Sourcing Principles have been the foundations of how we work with all our suppliers around the world in relation to human rights, sustainability, and decent working conditions. We were the first retailer to list all the suppliers we work with on our interactive supplier map and we update this every six months. It has information on over 1,300 factories covering over 950,000 workers.
- Our simple commitment is to send no clothes to landfill, ensuring any unsold stock is redistributed to our charity partners Oxfam, Newlife and SmartWorks.
- We’re working hard to reduce, reuse and recycle our use of plastic and through our hanger reuse scheme, we’ve diverted over one billion hangers from going to landfill since 2007 by reusing or recycling them, even if they’re broken).
About The Ellen MacArthur Foundation
The Ellen MacArthur Foundation is an international charity, committed to the creation of a circular economy that tackles some of the biggest challenges of our time, such as climate change and biodiversity loss. Driven by design, a circular economy eliminates waste and pollution, keeps products and materials in use, and regenerates natural systems - creating benefits for society, the environment, and the economy.
Further information: www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org | @circulareconomy
About The Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s Fashion Initiative
The Fashion Initiative was launched by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation as ‘Make Fashion Circular’ at the Copenhagen Fashion Summit 2017, and brings together leaders from across the fashion industry to work with cities, philanthropists, NGOs, and innovators. Fashion companies that are in the Foundation's Network include: Strategic Partner - H&M Group, Partners - Inditex, Lacoste, Primark, PVH Corp., Ralph Lauren and Zalando, and Members. The Foundation’s Fashion Initiative is leading international efforts to stop waste and pollution by creating a circular economy for the industry, where products are used more, are made to be made again and are made from safe, recycled or renewable inputs.
Further information: http://tiny.cc/makefashioncircular
Contact: [email protected]
2022 Fashion, Home & Beauty Charity & Community