As luxcycling continues to gain traction across the fashion and retail sectors, we’re calling on brands to introduce (Re)Creative Directors to bolster sustainable practices
Increasingly, brands are under pressure to embrace sustainability, while also meeting consumer demands to maintain the same high-quality and luxury associated with their core products. This desire for high-quality goods that are made using more sustainable practices is giving rise to a concept Gen Phoenix has coined luxcycling.
What is luxcycling?
This terminology gives vocabulary to the ways brands are using innovative materials and proprietary manufacturing processes to extend the lifespan of fashion and accessories products. We view luxcycling as the next frontier in material innovation, where the focus is not just on creating new products, but on repurposing, rejuvenating and reimagining existing materials to reduce waste and environmental impact.
Our collaborations with partners such as Coachtopia and Dr. Martens are perfect examples of luxcycling coming to life. These brands turned to Gen Phoenix to provide an innovative solution to help them develop collections that retain the quality of their heritage leather goods while simultaneously lowering their environmental footprint. But luxcycling isn’t just applicable to the leather industry, either. Other material innovators such as Ambercycle are helping brands like Athleta achieve the same results Gen Phoenix has with Coachtopia and Dr. Martens.
Embracing luxcycling as an industry
Beyond these new product launches, luxcycling is manifesting culturally as well. This year’s Met Gala theme, “Sleeping Beauty: Reawakening Fashion” – which centers around breathing new life into garments, especially those previously deemed unwearable or unusable in high fashion brands – is the perfect proof point. On the red carpet and beyond, we’re beginning to see luxcycling take hold across the industry.
In the spirit of this year’s Met Gala, where the Sleeping Beauty theme was front and center, we’re taking this opportunity to call leaders across the fashion and retail industry to adopt luxcycling in a meaningful way by introducing (Re)Creative Directors into their design teams. For its part, Coachtopia tapped four upcyclers to co-create its latest collection, providing inspiration for the rest of the industry on how they can work with experts in circularity to breathe new life into what once was considered waste. By hiring talent that specializes in finding creative opportunities to reuse existing materials and garments from their archives, we’ll be one step closer as an industry to promoting a more sustainable future.
Blending luxury and sustainability
In keeping with the “Sleeping Beauty” theme, Gen Phoenix is excited to unveil Aurora – the newly-minted name for our leather waste-based material used across leather goods, footwear, and accessories. Aurora is created using reclaimed Wet Blue waste from tanneries. Through our innovative, proprietary material technology, leather waste that would otherwise be destined for landfill is turned into a soft, luxurious high-quality material made with recycled leather fibre specifically designed for modern luxury. As pioneers in luxcycling, Gen Phoenix’s Aurora material embodies the future of sustainable luxury and demonstrates its possible to create a durable and beautiful material without compromise to the planet.
