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Regenerative Fashion Systems: Redefining Circularity in the Fashion and Textiles Industry
Summary
Researchers reviewed the limitations of circular fashion models and proposed a regenerative fashion systems framework that goes beyond waste reduction to actively restore biodiversity, rebuild soil health, and integrate nature-based solutions across design and supply chains using materials such as mycelium leather and algae-based fibers.
The fashion and textiles industry faces escalating environmental and social challenges due to its linear, resource-intensive, and waste-generating systems. While sustainable and circular fashion models have delivered incremental improvements through waste reduction, material reuse, and recycling, they often fall short of enabling systemic transformation. This review introduces regenerative fashion systems as a new paradigm, extending beyond circularity by emphasising net-positive ecological and social outcomes. Unlike circular models focused on material retention, regenerative fashion actively restores biodiversity, rebuilds soil health, empowers communities, and integrates nature-based solutions across design and supply chains. The review begins by examining conventional circular strategies such as reuse, repair, recycling, and composting, and then critically evaluates their limitations, including material degradation, synthetic pollution, and social inequities. Unlike prior reviews that examine circular strategies in isolation, this study provides a holistic synthesis of regenerative principles, spanning materials, agriculture, systems design, and policy, and integrates them into a unified regenerative circularity framework. It explores concepts rooted in biomimicry, systems thinking, co-creation, and nature-aligned design. Innovative materials, such as mycelium leather, algae-based fibres, and regenerative cotton, are analysed alongside implementation barriers, including policy gaps, infrastructure limitations, and risks of greenwashing. This interdisciplinary synthesis addresses a key gap in sustainability literature by proposing regenerative circularity as a transformative framework to shift fashion from extractive to regenerative systems. By aligning fashion practices with ecosystem restoration and community resilience, this approach offers a roadmap for a just, bio-centric future in fashion.
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