Inditex, the parent company of Zara, has made a three year commitment to buy 30% of Infinited Fiber Company’s annual future production volume of Infinna – the new textile fibre that can be created from 100% textile waste – in a deal valued at more than €100 million.

The new agreement comes just days after Infinited announced a separate multi-year partnership with PVH Corp, owner of the Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger brands

The purchase commitment from Inditex is a significant boost to Infinited’s plans to scale up its recycling technology through its first large-capacity factory, which it expects to begin operations in 2024, when Inditex is due to start buying Infinna.

The collaboration with Infinited is part of the Inditex Sustainability Innovation Hub, an open-innovation platform that works alongside start-ups, academic institutions and tech centres to scale innovative initiatives for new materials, technologies and processes that reduce the environmental footprint of fashion products and help in the advance towards more sustainable and circular solutions.

Infinited has developed a technology to turn cellulose-rich materials such as worn-out, cotton-rich clothes into Infinna fibre that looks and feels like cotton and can be recycled again in the same process together with other textile waste. With Infinna, Inditex will be able to continue to minimise the use of virgin materials and advance the move towards a more circular model of clothing production.

As part of this agreement, Zara is also launching a first-of-its-kind capsule, with most of its materials produced from clothing sourced in collaboration with the Spanish NGO Cáritas, Zara’s clothing collection programme partner. The collection pairs Zara’s fashion-forward styles with Infinited’s waste regeneration technology and became available worldwide on Zara.com on May 12^th.

“We truly believe innovation is key for the competitive circular future of the fashion industry, which is why we are actively working to find solutions and searching for new partnerships, processes and materials to achieve textile-to-textile recycling,” said Inditex chief sustainability officer Javier Losada. “Collaborating with others is vital to carrying out the transformation our industry needs.”

“Inditex is one of the world’s largest fashion retailers and this deal is a significant step towards realising our ambition of making Infinna a mainstream textile material of the future,” added Petri Alava, CEO and co-founder of Infinited Fiber Company. “It is such a joy to see the beautifully designed pieces created from sustainably produced upcycled fibre now brought to market for Zara’s customers. We look forward to continuing the collaboration with Inditex to make textile circularity an everyday reality.”

www.inditex.com

www.infinitedfiber.com