Takashimaya turns 3,200kg of dormant suits into its first recycled-fabric casual wear
Eight casual-wear items made with recycled suit fibre go on sale at six Takashimaya stores from October 7 — a department-store sustainability project with a real volume behind it, not just a collection bin.
Takashimaya said it will put eight casual-wear items made partly from recycled suit fabric on sale at six of its stores from October 7 — the first commercial result of a project that collected about 3,200 kilograms of "dormant suits," menswear left unworn in Japanese wardrobes, according to a release dated September 29.
The new fabric is spun from yarn that is about 17 per cent recycled suit fibre, Takashimaya said, with Mita Spinning and Miyuki Woolen Mills turning the collected material into fabric under a project — which Takashimaya calls "Depart de Loop" — developed together with Kyoto Institute of Technology, Joto Techno and Higashidani Shoten. Offcuts not spun into yarn are being reworked into fixtures for Takashimaya's own shop floors, the company said.
The eight items go on sale October 7 at Takashimaya's Nihombashi, Shinjuku, Tamagawa, Yokohama, Osaka and Kyoto stores.
A clothing take-back bin is cheap marketing; turning the material into a shelf-ready product — with a measured volume, a named fibre percentage and a university research partner — is a more credible sustainability claim than most department stores manage. It also gives Takashimaya's menswear floor, traditionally the most conservative part of any department store, a concrete reason for a customer to walk in with an old suit and walk out with something new.