ASOS trials partnership with Thrift+ and launches second circular design collection

ASOS has today launched its second circular design collection featuring 47 pieces across clothing and accessories for the Spring/Summer season, alongside a trial partnership with resale service Thrift+.

Each of the 47 styles in the circular design collection meets ASOS’ circular design criteria, which is based on the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s vision for a circular fashion economy. As part of this, all products in the collection are made from recycled, renewable, or innovative materials.

The collection builds on ASOS’ previous circular design collection released in September 2020. Whilst the 2020 collection involved a small number of teams that had progressed through ASOS’ circular design education programme, every commercial team across ASOS was involved in the creation of the products in the collection launching today, reflecting the wider rollout of circular design education across ASOS’ teams.

It follows the publication in November 2021 of the ASOS Circular Design Handbook, a 112-page interactive resource to help ASOS, external designers, students and other fashion brands design and create fashion products that support the circular economy.

In the collection, ASOS’ customers can shop from summer pieces including cut-out detail dresses, oversized, colour-blocked shirts, and "boyfriend" jeans, accessorised with printed headscarves and  sunglasses.

Vanessa Spence, Commercial Design and Visual Director at ASOS, said: “To have a successful commercial future, the fashion industry needs to be both sustainable and circular. Over the past few years, we’ve been working with our partners and experts to discover how we can be more circular - one of our new 2030 Fashion with Integrity goals. The launch of our second circular design collection, which uses innovative new materials and takes our circular design criteria one step further, is a great moment for us as we continue to develop our expertise in this area.

“Of course, design is just one piece of the circular puzzle – and to be truly circular, products must pass through circular systems as well as meet our circular design criteria. While resale is just one such system, we’re proud to be launching a new trial in collaboration with Thrift+ today, to extend the life of products by enabling them to easily and conveniently be resold.”

Looking towards the future, Nick Eley, Head of Design at ASOS exclusively told TheIndustry.fashion: “The biggest challenge we have at the moment is footwear. Footwear is a very difficult products to make circular as it is usually made up of lots of different materials including rubber, metal and glue. It's not just us at ASOS who are looking at it, even the biggest footwear brands in the world haven't got to it yet. It's one of the biggest challenges for the industry to look at.”

Thrift+ trial

As part of the Thrift+ trial, customers will receive credit that they can either donate to charity, use to purchase second-hand fashion on Thrift+ or redeem as ASOS vouchers. Customers can:

• Request a free ASOS x Thrift+ bag via a link on ASOS’ website
• Send unwanted clothes to Thrift+ to sell on its platform
• Once sold, receive credits which can either be spent on other preloved clothing or donated to a chosen charity.

ASOS has confirmed that 30,000 bags will be available for customers as part of the first phase of the trial.

Joe Metcalfe, Thrift+ Founder, said: “We are delighted to support ASOS’ progress towards circularity with the launch of this trial. Making it easy for people to responsibly get unwanted clothing back into circulation is key to making fashion more circular; and it’s hugely exciting that ASOS customers will now have the Thrift+ service at their fingertips. We’re looking forward to measuring the impact of the trial, such as the number of items re-sold and the amount raised for charity; as well as feeding data on the success of item resale back into future circular product design.”

Jo Mourant, Senior Sustainability Partner at ASOS, added: “We'll also use our partnership with Thrift+ to take note of and look at the type of product being returned. We'll be able to see if Thrift+ are getting a particular product back and look at it again in our design process. It's really hard for us to get that data without getting that product back, so working with someone like Thrift+, who already have the infrastructure, is a really good way of trialling that and further building our strategy.”