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Six Recycling Innovations that Could Change Fashion

Tackling fashion's waste problem has become a top priority. MARTIN BERNETTI / AFP
Tackling fashion's waste problem has become a top priority. MARTIN BERNETTI / AFP
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Six Recycling Innovations that Could Change Fashion

Tackling fashion's waste problem has become a top priority. MARTIN BERNETTI / AFP
Tackling fashion's waste problem has become a top priority. MARTIN BERNETTI / AFP

The fashion industry's enormous waste problem is pushing governments, particularly in Europe, towards ambitious recycling targets.
The problem is that recycling textiles is a highly complex task and technical solutions are still in their infancy, AFP said.
NGOs warn the real problem is over-production, and that tech innovations may just provide cover for brands to continue pumping out billions of new clothes.
But the pressure to start recycling at massive scale is happening now.
"Brands need to get to high levels of recycling at super-speed, and if they don't, the EU will be giving them massive fines," said circular economy consultant Paul Foulkes-Arellano.
AFP spoke to multiple experts to see which ideas could make a difference.
Many will fail, but here is a snapshot of current contenders that illustrate the different challenges in textile recycling.
MycoWorks: Mushroom leather
MycoWorks grows mycelium (fungus roots) that comes out like luxury leather, with early clients including Hermes and General Motors (for car interiors).
"The only input is sawdust and energy costs are extremely low because it's a fungus not a plant, so there's no need for light, and very little water," said CEO Matt Scullin.
While the makers of most new biomaterials are struggling to reach industrial scale, MycoWorks claims to have cracked the problem, billing itself as "the first and only biomaterials company to open a full-scale factory" -- in the US state of South Carolina -- with the first 1,000-sheet harvest coming off the line in January.
Circ: Unblending clothes
Most clothes are a blend of materials, making them hard to recycle. US-based Circ has invented a chemical solution to separate the most common blend, polycotton, into its constituent parts.
It uses a hydrothermal process to liquify the polyester and separate it from the cotton.
Both can then be turned into new fibers. Retail giant Zara used them for a clothing line released in April.
SuperCircle: Collecting and sorting
The world lacks the infrastructure to collect and sort large amounts of old clothes, which must be kept clean and separate from other waste.
SuperCircle brings together delivery firms, warehouses and tracking systems to streamline and cheapen the process.
They hope to change public attitudes with in-store drop-off bins, free shipping labels and other encouragements.
"We need ease, convenience and incentives for consumers so that when they are done with an item, the first thing they think is end-of-life recycling," said co-founder Stuart Ahlum.
They now handle all recycling logistics for multiple companies and sectors, including Uniqlo North America.
Saentis Textiles: in-house recycling
Saentis Textiles already helped solve one key challenge with a patented machine that can recycle cotton with minimal damage to the fibres, so it can make quality new textiles.
Its recycled cotton is used by brands including IKEA, Patagonia and Tommy Hilfiger.
Now it is selling its machine to textile companies so they can install one directly in their factories, allowing them to chuck in cut-offs and scraps for recycling on the spot.
Unspun: 3D weaving machine
Unspun claims to have invented the world's first 3D weaving machine, capable of creating a custom-sized pair of jeans directly from yarns in under 10 minutes.
Currently building its first micro-factory in Oakland, California to prove the concept, the machine could remove the need for brands to keep large stockpiles of inventory, cutting down on waste and transport.
Cetia: Preparing old clothes
Clothes must be prepared before they can be recycled, and this is the specialty of France-based Cetia.
Some of its machines are simple, like one that yanks the soles off shoes.
Others are more complex. One uses AI to recognise hard points such as buttons and zippers, and then a laser to slice them off without damaging the item.

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Fashion

Paris Mourns Valentino, the Last Titan of Couture’s Golden Age

An Italian flag hangs at half-mast outside the Valentino Creative Headquarters, following the death of the fashion designer Valentino Garavani at the age of 93 on Monday, in Rome, Italy, January 20, 2026. (Reuters)
An Italian flag hangs at half-mast outside the Valentino Creative Headquarters, following the death of the fashion designer Valentino Garavani at the age of 93 on Monday, in Rome, Italy, January 20, 2026. (Reuters)
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Paris Mourns Valentino, the Last Titan of Couture’s Golden Age

An Italian flag hangs at half-mast outside the Valentino Creative Headquarters, following the death of the fashion designer Valentino Garavani at the age of 93 on Monday, in Rome, Italy, January 20, 2026. (Reuters)
An Italian flag hangs at half-mast outside the Valentino Creative Headquarters, following the death of the fashion designer Valentino Garavani at the age of 93 on Monday, in Rome, Italy, January 20, 2026. (Reuters)

Valentino Garavani’s death cast a long shadow over the opening day of Paris Fashion Week menswear Tuesday, with front-row guests and industry figures mourning the passing of one of the last towering names of 20th-century couture — an Italian designer whose working life was closely entwined with the Paris runways.

Valentino, 93, died at his Rome residence, the Valentino Garavani and Giancarlo Giammetti Foundation said in a statement announcing his death. While he built his house in Rome, he spent decades presenting collections in France.

He “was one of the last big couturiers who really embodied what was fashion in the 20th century,” said Pierre Groppo, fashion editor-in-chief at Vanity Fair France.

On a day meant to sell the future, many guests said they were thinking about what fashion has lost: the couturier as a living institution.

Groppo pointed to the codes that made Valentino instantly legible — “the dots, the ruffles, the knots” — and to a generation of designers who, he said, “in a way, invented what is celebrity culture.”

Valentino’s vision was built on a simple idea: make women look luminous, then make the moment unforgettable.

He dressed Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Elizabeth Taylor, among others, fixed his signature “Valentino red” in the public imagination, and — through his decades-long partnership with Giancarlo Giammetti — helped turn the designer himself into part of the spectacle, as recognizable as the clients in his front row.

The end of a fashion era

Prominent fashion writer Luke Leitch framed the loss in similarly outsized terms, calling Valentino “the last of the fashion ‘leviathans of that generation’,” and saying it was “absolutely” the end of a certain class of designer: figures whose names could carry a global house, and whose authority came not from viral speed but from permanence.

Trained in Paris before founding his maison in Rome, Valentino became a rare bridge figure: Italian by origin, but fluent in the rituals that made Paris couture an institution. His career moved between those two capitals of elegance, bringing Roman grandeur into a system that still treats fashion not only as commerce, but as ceremony.

Even as he aged, the house’s founder kept turning up at its couture and ready-to-wear shows, as observed by one Associated Press journalist — until he eventually retreated from public life, all the while radiating quiet grandeur from his front-row seat.

For some in Paris on Tuesday, the loss felt personal precisely because Valentino’s world was never only Italian.

Groppo recalled the designer as “very much more than a fashion brand,” adding: “It was a lifestyle.”

That lifestyle — couture polish, social glamour, and the conviction that elegance could be a form of power — remains a reference point even as fashion accelerates toward louder branding and faster cycles.

“It’s quite sad as he’s so important to the fashion industry, and he contributed a lot and I cannot forget the stunning red he created,” said Lolo Zhang, a Chinese fashion influencer attending Louis Vuitton ’s show in Paris.

“He always celebrated pure beauty, and architecture for the silhouette, and how he used color. The old era just passed by.”

Other guests described a delayed realization — the kind that arrives only when a figure who seemed permanent is suddenly gone.

YSL, Chanel and Valentino

“There are some people who want to be Yves Saint Laurent, Chanel. ... There are also people who are spontaneously Valentino,” said Guy-Claude Agboton, deputy editor of Ideat magazine. “It’s a question of identity.”

For Paris fashion observer Benedict Epinay, the grief was bound up with memory. And with the emotional charge of Valentino’s final bow.

“It was such a great moment. I was lucky enough to attend the last show he gave,” Epinay said. “It was so moving because we knew at that time it was the last show.”

Fashion observer Arfan Ghani pointed to what Valentino represented to younger designers: a “classy” standard of restraint in an era that often rewards noise.

“Because it was very classical materials," Ghani said. "It wasn’t as loud as a lot of other of these brands are with branding.”

Paris-based sculptor Ranti Bam described Valentino in the language of form: less trend than structure, less look than line.

“As a sculptor I saw Valentino as an artist,” Bam said. “He transcended fashion into sculpture.”

“He didn’t follow trends, he pursued form,” she added. “That’s why his work doesn’t date, it endures.”

The fashion house Valentino has for years continued under a new generation of leadership and design — still showcased in Paris.

Fashion

Pharrell Opens Vuitton’s Monogram Anniversary Year With Cinematic Menswear Show

A model presents a creation from the Fall/Winter 2026/2027 collection by US designer Pharrell Williams for Louis Vuitton during the Paris Fashion Week, in Paris, France, 20 January 2026. (EPA)
A model presents a creation from the Fall/Winter 2026/2027 collection by US designer Pharrell Williams for Louis Vuitton during the Paris Fashion Week, in Paris, France, 20 January 2026. (EPA)
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Pharrell Opens Vuitton’s Monogram Anniversary Year With Cinematic Menswear Show

A model presents a creation from the Fall/Winter 2026/2027 collection by US designer Pharrell Williams for Louis Vuitton during the Paris Fashion Week, in Paris, France, 20 January 2026. (EPA)
A model presents a creation from the Fall/Winter 2026/2027 collection by US designer Pharrell Williams for Louis Vuitton during the Paris Fashion Week, in Paris, France, 20 January 2026. (EPA)

Pharrell Williams opened a celebration year for Louis Vuitton's monogram — marking the house’s 130th anniversary of its most recognizable signature — with a Fall-Winter 2026 men’s show that was equal parts brand pageant and movie set.

Inside the Louis Vuitton Foundation in Paris, the guests encircled the grassy runway. At its center sat a glass-walled, minimalist apartment — part bedroom, part display box — where models kept entering and exiting like characters crossing movie scenes.

It was also a celebrity-heavy room, with a front row mixing music, film and online fame — SZA, Usher, Future, Jackson Wang and others, plus a runway debut to seal the crossover: BamBam of Korean boy band GOT7.

The soundtrack did as much scene-setting as the set. A gospel choir and full orchestra performed live from the balconies, lifting what could have been a straightforward runway lap into something closer to a staged sequence: romantic, controlled, faintly grand.

On the clothes, Williams stayed inside his Vuitton DNA: readable from a distance, richer up close, and always tethered to the idea of travel and the house’s heritage goods.

This season’s lens was 1970s ease spiked with utility. The palette sat firmly in autumn-tonal grays, browns, black, denim, cream — then broke into jolts of bubblegum pink, baby blue and emerald green that kept the mood from turning too polite.

It was Vuitton in full brand mode: monogram year messaging, hero outerwear, high-gloss accessories, and a set built for cameras.

Silhouettes ran long and loose, with baggier trousers that swung into an A-line sweep; suits were often topped with parka coats, a high-low collision that has become one of his signatures.

The details — always his style argument — did the work.

Shirts flashed with glimmering surfaces.

Bows and jabot-style collars delivered the 70s note without going costume.

Utility came through in the hardware language: ties, toggles, belts, zippers; faux-fur collars that read both functional and decorative.

Patent Oxford shoes added a hard, glossy punctuation under the softer shapes.

A monogrammed puffer arrived as the obvious anniversary-era hero item.

Williams also pushed a slightly “undone” finish — wrinkled tops that looked intentionally lived-in rather than sloppy — while widening the fit menu beyond the season’s broader swing toward slimness: skin-tight knits, cleanly fitted suits and oversized tailored shorts.

Then came the Vuitton wink at travel as culture-object: an Art Nouveau travel case in stained glass, rolled through on a trolley — absurd, beautiful, and perfectly on-message for a house that still sells the idea of departure as luxury.

Fashion

Burberry Beats Holiday Sales Expectations, Attracts More Shoppers in China

A Burberry Check styled shirt with the Burberry label is displayed at the Burberry flagship store in Regent Street, London, Britain, September 8, 2025. (Reuters)
A Burberry Check styled shirt with the Burberry label is displayed at the Burberry flagship store in Regent Street, London, Britain, September 8, 2025. (Reuters)
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Burberry Beats Holiday Sales Expectations, Attracts More Shoppers in China

A Burberry Check styled shirt with the Burberry label is displayed at the Burberry flagship store in Regent Street, London, Britain, September 8, 2025. (Reuters)
A Burberry Check styled shirt with the Burberry label is displayed at the Burberry flagship store in Regent Street, London, Britain, September 8, 2025. (Reuters)

Burberry beat expectations for sales growth in the key holiday quarter as its marketing push featuring British celebrities resonated ‌with shoppers ‌and helped attract more Gen ‌Z ⁠consumers ​in China.

Joshua ‌Schulman, who became CEO in July 2024 as sales were sliding, is leading a turnaround focused on trench coats, scarves and the brand's British heritage, while cutting costs after reducing the workforce by 20% last year.

"Our customers responded to our immersive Timeless ⁠British Luxury campaigns and experiences, while the continued strength in our core ‌outerwear category is now extending ‍into accessories and ready-to-wear," ‍Schulman said in a statement on Wednesday.

Comparable store sales rose 3% in the three months to December 27, beating analysts' expectation of 2% growth, according to a company-compiled consensus.

Sales ​in China rose 6% on a comparable basis, as the brand continued its recovery ⁠in the crucial luxury market. Burberry said the performance was supported by "double-digit" growth in Gen Z customers.

The company said its markdown period was shorter and "shallower" than last year, an encouraging sign for investors looking for signs that customers are increasingly willing to buy Burberry products at full price.

Burberry said it expects full-year adjusted operating profit to be in line with the consensus forecast of 149 million pounds ($200 ‌million).