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Envisioning circular offerings for a luxury fashion brand

Project Overview

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VANA, a luxury fashion brand from Bogotá, wanted to incorporate sustainability into their business. Using a collaborative approach, I worked alongside the founder to identify and explore circularity opportunities. We defined a couple of circular strategies and developed an action plan for implementation. As a result, a second-hand pop-up store and a repair service were added to the brand's offerings.

 

Client

VANA

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Duration

May – June 2020

Methods

Life cycle thinking, circular strategies, supply chain analysis, implementation roadmap

My Role

Circular Design Stragetist

Team

Contractor working with a team of 2 founders

The challenge

Every second, a truckload of clothing is dumped in a landfill or incinerated

According to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, less than 1% of the materials used in clothing are recycled into new textiles and garments. In addition, thanks to the phenomenon of "fast fashion" in the last 15 years, the production of clothing has doubled, and at the same time, its use time has decreased by almost 40%. It is estimated that more than half of the clothing produced under this “fast fashion” phenomenon is eliminated in less than a year.

Approach

Introducing the building blocks

Initially through an interactive workshop I presented the main concepts of circular economy, design thinking and systems thinking, introducing examples of successful circular design strategies and the reasons for their success.

Finding circularity opportunities in the product life cycle

Through collaborative sessions, we broke down their product journey from material selection to end of use. We use life cycle thinking to understand each step of the current process and find opportunities for improvement.

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Generating and evaluating the best circular options for the business

Using various tools such as prioritization matrix, DVF evaluation criteria, and round robin, we explore the most favorable opportunities and develop ideas in that direction. In the end, we take the most promising idea and develop an action plan for a pilot.

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The result

Two new circular services were integrated into the brand offerings

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At the end of our collaboration, VANA defined two circular strategies to make its business more sustainable. First, offer garment repair services with a free first repair. Second, offer discount vouchers for their customers to return their VANA products in good condition. With these products, launch a second-hand sale po-up event once a year to give the garments a second life.

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See the latest VANA circular fashion collections

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