Fashion for Good has launched the Cotton Reloop Matrix Project, a cross-industry initiative designed to assess recycled cotton yarn quality against brand requirements and identify opportunities to scale commercial adoption.
The project brings together industry partners Arvind, BESTSELLER, C&A, Interloop, Reformation and Shahi, alongside ecosystem partner Uster, to evaluate the relationship between recycled content, yarn quality and cost.
Mechanical recycling remains an important route for converting cotton-rich textile waste into new fibres. However, the process shortens and weakens fibres, limiting usable output and making it difficult to incorporate higher percentages of recycled cotton without compromising fabric performance.
The initiative aims to address fragmented testing practices and the lack of shared industry data by matching recycler capabilities with brand specifications. It will also encourage a shift from comparing recycled cotton directly with virgin cotton to evaluating materials according to their intended applications.
The project will follow two parallel tracks. The first will develop a Quality Matrix mapping available recycled cotton yarns against brand requirements across knitted and woven applications. The second will validate findings under real production conditions through 10 demonstrator fabrics and five quality augmentation trials, generating a trade-off analysis of recycled content, price and quality.
Katrin Ley, Managing Director of Fashion for Good, said the initiative would help replace fragmented data and isolated testing with evidence-based industry standards. Reformation’s Senior Director of Raw Materials, Nikki Player, also highlighted the potential for shared testing and reference data to support higher recycled cotton blends without compromising fabric quality and feel.
By establishing a common evidence base for brands, spinners and recyclers, the Cotton Reloop Matrix Project aims to help the textile industry identify commercially viable applications for recycled cotton and accelerate its wider adoption.
