Edinburgh Napier University

  Ghillied has an ambition to minimise waste in the fashion industry – both in terms of front-end over production, and back-end waste. This encompasses manufacturing too many products that are likely to go to waste, the subsequent offcuts from this process, as well as how garments are used when they are finished with.

This project aims to develop a solution to manufacturing offcuts, as well as some waste garments which have been spoiled or finished with by the end customer. Specifically, this waste fabric will go through an innovative process of re-manufacturing into a form that it can be re-sold rather than wasted.

Ghillied hopes this partnership will result in larger projects in the future which looks the viability of extruding fibres from waste products out with the fashion industry (such as plastics) and re-purposing these into a form that can be turned into fashion accessories.

It is proposed that the academics utilise the small, offcut scraps of fabric from the Ghillied’s manufacturing process and create a new, innovative ‘solid’ composite material. Experiments will be done with recycled ‘ocean plastic’ types of polymers and bioplastics such as PLA. In addition to this, the most successful material will be made into a prototype ‘bangle’ type shape that can be further utilised by the company into a fitness-related fashion accessory such as a fit bit and the innovation of the new material be used as part of their marketing of their sustainable credentials. The company will also be given a simple, clear instruction sheet should they wish to continue making the material separately from the academics involved.