The Lifecycle of Things

Nothing lasts forever, and that's okay.

Hello. Welcome to Clothing 2.0. This is my first post and I wanted to acknowledge all of you who have signed up to follow my journey and writing. If you are wondering if this is for you, this post might give a hint. Clothing 2.0 is for individuals interested in circular design and my journey with it. You may or may not be a designer yourself, you may be a curious citizen.

If you don’t know me that well yet, I’ll give a bit of background. I used to run a circular fashion label called A.BCH. We made beautiful things in our own micro factory in Melbourne. But, earlier this year, I made the decision to wrap up the clothing making aspect of A.BCH (which has been an 8 month long processes) and now, after selling our very last machines and moving into a new (much smaller) space in Footscray, it all finally feels…final. I did write a very emotional-at-the-time post about it on our blog so if you are interested in why I blew up my life in this way , you can read about it here. 

Hindsight has shown me this was the best decision I could have made for myself, my team and the legacy of A.BCH. Today life looks different for sure, but we are on the cusp of something bigger than a brand, bigger than ourselves. This letter will capture some of the work we are currently doing through our circular design firm (now known as A.BCH World) and our startup Circular Sourcing, while outlining notes from the field. I only hope to expand on these themes in the months to come with you and this little newsletter.

Being Circular

One thing I must make clear is that circularity was never an afterthought for A.BCH. It wasn’t an add-on to our products post design or make and it certainly wasn’t a buzzword. Circularity was the very tenet and central thesis of starting the brand. And I think a lot of people go wrong trying to tack it on to something fundamentally incompatible. Circularity will not change our environmental or social impacts so long as it stays in the realm of nice ideas and philosophy. Circularity must have deep roots in practical, real world action-taking and must be set into motion in the design phase. I think the sooner the industry realises this, the sooner we will have something resembling a circular economy. Until then, I can serve A.BCH up as a case study and roll up my A.05 sleeves (iykyk) while getting to work helping other businesses get started.

There’s lots of sustainability-folk-chatter about durability vs recyclability. There’s also a lot of focus on swapping materials from one to another, in the hopes of reducing the carbon footprint of a product. Some say a focus on recycling is misguided and won’t lead to a decrease in resource use. This is all a distraction. If we do not consider the ultimate end of life of our clothing and prioritise an end of life outcome as a design strategy, hand-in-hand with life extension and producing for value and product purpose - then no amount of material swaps or fancy certifications will help us achieve the low carbon future we need to transition to.

Should anything live forever?

Physical durability is not everything. It is important yes, but for clothing (and especially circular clothing) it cannot be the only measure of circularity, else we go too far. Like, is there any point to indestructible underwear constructed of the strongest materials (plastic) where more than one owner is unlikely? Is it smart to make our undergarments outlive us in landfills? Where does patina fit into this? Emotional and design durability (when purpose and value is built into the designing and making itself) do not necessarily mean a product physically holds up or won’t change after a wash. It’s like a beautiful pair of decade old jeans, worn in all the right places - rips and all, making a regular appearance in your routine. Or a softly worn in 100% cotton circular knit t-shirt with the crackly remains of a 90s screen print, beloved, even when it becomes too discoloured to wear anywhere else but to bed. It’s the cut of that skivvy, that makes you feel put together and powerful, even when the neck wont hold up on its own anymore and the edges start to fuzz. Pure physical and unchanging durability, unless for a very specific performance garment, is not something we should expect from our clothing. I believe that doing so fuels fast fashion even more – the expectation of new needs re-thinking.

Circular design is the harmony of two things – Slowing the Flow and Closing the Loop. Go to the extreme in one or the other and you get clothes that will never safely return to the earth because of unnecessary over engineering, or something built for dystopian fast fashion system where you might print your clothes in the morning, and drop them off in a recycling bin by the evening.

Circular Flow for Clothing - © Courtney Holm / A.BCH World

Notes from the Field (from an ex-circular fashion designer)

You might be wondering how on earth A.BCH can maintain its circular credentials given we have wrapped up the clothes making side of things. Circularity includes the WHOLE lifecycle - birth, life and afterlife. So of course we thought about what would happen in the case that we would no longer make clothes.

We always needed a plan for the whole lifecycle, with or without A.BCH the brand.

A.BCH World stands today as circular design innovator and an educational tool, including an archive of every garment we ever produced with a full bill of materials and lifecycle plan per piece. Our customers can still search by garment style number to find details on anything we every made while care guides, repair instructions, overdye services and our recycling take-back lives on.

A.BCH products were designed to be taken back by us and retain material value even once the product value had declined. For example, your well loved t-shirt might be beyond repair and reuse, but those materials, a print and plastic free, monochrome, mono-material organic cotton is one of the most valuable and recyclable textiles on the planet. I'm confident that if any garments are to be recycled after a long life of use, reuse and repair, that our garments are the most ideal candidates. Why? We planned for afterlife value in the design phase. Our pieces will be desirable and most sought after by a recycler - and that's by design.

With an enduring archive remaining open source at ABCH.WORLD, owners of A.BCH garments, current and future recyclers and even brands who want to study our method can know what to do with their garments in the Afterlife phase.

And where will these things go? Even now I'm working on an ongoing project (years in the making!) that will see the offcuts we created during the 8 years of ABCH production, as well as any garments that come back to us through the take back program, decommissioned and mechanically recycled into new yarns. These yarns can be made into really good quality fabrics, like canvas, terry and even denim. So while they might not have come full circle through our brand, they will be able to come through our circular material sourcing platform, Circular Sourcing for other brands to use. Ahhh the lifecycle is beautiful when you have insanely high quality feedstock!

Photo by Odin Wilde for A.BCH

The Archive and a Bill of Materials

As a circular designer, you can never underestimate the usefulness of creating a digital archive of the garments you make. Each one should outline the exact bill of materials and ideally decommissioning instructions. Without this information prominently displayed open source or in the future, imbedded into the garment with digital product passports, you can not and should not refer to yourself as circular. Why? Think about the practical implications of circular design – who will know what to do with your unknown garment with 12+ materials embodied within it at the end of life? No one, and they wont bother to find out either. It's just not worth it. So if you are a brand or label reading this, my number one piece of advice is to create a digital product archive with each item's full bill of materials, today. If you need help with this, there will be some very useful tools coming your way soon. Or reach out to me for more details.

Lifecycle of Things

Nature shows us that lifecycles organically progress and all things change. Nothing grows indefinitely or lasts forever and rebirth is ever occurring. This is not something to fear, but something to embrace. We can apply it to so many things in life, not least, when we are designing the clothing of the future.

Thanks for reading. If you liked this or know someone that would, please share it.

All my best,

Courtney