Goldwin fits the Toyama Marathon shirt with a digital product passport
Goldwin has added a QR-code digital product passport -- material, carbon and repair data a smartphone can read -- to the participation T-shirt for the Toyama Marathon 2026, a small domestic trial of the kind of apparel traceability the EU is moving to require, run jointly with NTT Docomo Business and CYKLUS.
Goldwin Inc., the Toyama-based sportswear maker that also holds The North Face's Japan licence, said it has fitted the participation T-shirt for the Toyama Marathon 2026 -- held November 1 in the prefecture where the company was founded -- with a scannable digital product passport (DPP), according to an October 15 release. It is the first time the event's shirt has carried one.
A QR code on the shirt's tag, read with a smartphone, calls up the garment's specifications, material composition, carbon emissions and other environmental-impact data, along with care instructions, a repair-service contact and reuse and recycling information, Goldwin said. The aim, the company said, is to help the wearer keep the shirt in use well after race day rather than retire it once the marathon is over.
Goldwin said it is taking part, as one of several participating brands, in a joint proof-of-concept trial for digital product passports in apparel led by CYKLUS Inc. and NTT Docomo Business Inc. -- placing the Toyama shirt inside a wider industry test of the technology rather than a one-off Goldwin project.
The shirt itself is made entirely of recycled polyester, combining a UV-cut, heat-shielding fabric across the shoulders with a breathable dot-mesh panel from front to back, a design Goldwin said was built on heat-map data gathered at its Goldwin Tech Lab in Oyabe, Toyama; the graphic uses the same reflective print as road signage to improve night-time visibility on the course.
A QR code on a race shirt looks like a small thing, but it is a rehearsal for a much bigger shift: the European Union is moving toward requiring exactly this kind of product-level data -- material, carbon, repair, end of life -- on apparel sold there, and a Japanese maker testing the mechanics now, on a low-stakes item with a telecoms partner already in the room, is cheaper practice than retrofitting the system once a bigger market demands it.