PARIS – Levi Strauss and Stella McCartney are among four global brands which intend to launch lines using ground-breaking technology which transforms post-consumer textile waste into new fibres. At this week’s Premiere Vision, Apparel Insider caught up with Evrnu founder Stacy Flynn who told us about the company’s plans for the coming 18 months.
Evrnu technology breaks down post-consumer textile waste to the molecular level and then transforms it into high-quality cellulosic fibre for the creation of textiles.
“The last four years has been about building the technology,” she told us. “We are now working with four brands and don’t intend to bring any others on board until they go to retail.”
The goal is to have all four brands, which also includes an unnamed athletic-wear brand, retailing recycled lines by the end of 2019, while Evrnu itself will begin building capacity at scale by 2020.
“We are working on a market launch and with global scaling partners which can take our technology and license it so that we can begin mass producing around the world on behalf of brands,” Flynn said.
Of all the bold claims within the apparel sector around closing the loop, Evrnu appears to be the most logistically advanced. Flynn tells us the company has its own extrusion line in New Jersey and a chemical lab in Seattle, as well as a pilot plant in South Carolina. The company is also plans to work with multiple available commercial solvent systems in production alongside global fibre makers. The technology is proven and Evrnu now has some key commercial partners in place.
Perhaps most crucially, the business is overcoming some notable challenges in terms of recyclability, one of these being the large amounts of elastane used in apparel. Evrnu’s technology can break down cotton and polyester. Where elastane is concerned, the company has developed its own stretch fibre which can be broken down and recovered, unlike elastane.
Read more about Evrnu’s plans in the next printed edition of Apparel Insider.