High -end seam Chanel Barf in a new section of unconventional activity: waste management and recycling.
On Monday, the company announced the launch of NEVOLD (the name is an “NEVER Old”) contraction, a new independent company focused on the development of end -of -life solutions for textile discoveries, unused tissues and unsold or old products.
This decision comes in the midst of increasing concerns concerning the volume of waste Created by the fashion industry. Although often described as a rapid fashion problem, luxury products in mass in millions of units also have an impact. Over the past decade, the value of unsold stocks held on luxury giant books like Kering and LVMH reached billions of dollars.
The regulators pay attention. New rules, led by Europe, are ready to make brands more responsible for waste generated by their companies and dryer On the historically favored solution of luxury: simply destroy unsold products.
Chanel said his greatest concern was Rarity of resources. Many of the most precious fibers of luxury, such as superior cashmere, silk and leather, are threatened by climate change, which makes the raw materials linked to the ready-to-wear of last season, a future precious goods.
“It becomes more and more important and more and more strategic for us,” said Chanel fashion president Bruno Pavlovsky. “If we want to continue to exist and do what we do, we must anticipate and see how we can rethink this idea of materials and raw materials.”
Sell circularity
Chanel has been accumulating in the creation of NEVOLD for several years, starting to invest in space in 2019. But now it is ready for a difficult launch, with ambitions to develop the vertical in a B2B and R&D HUB service provider focused on the development of circular solutions for the fashion industry.
It’s a familiar strategy For Chanel. The luxury giant has already built a manufacturing division of more than 50 factories and workshops specializing in a push of several decades to future evidence of its supply chain. Investments include the Brouderer Lersage, the feathered specialist and the Lemarié flowers and the Maison Michel hats manufacturer. These manufacture products for the brand, but also provide services to other fashion companies. Company has provoked The engineer and former executive of LVMH Sophie Brocart to supervise the exploitation and expansion of the new division.
In the long term, the ambition is that NEVOLD is part of a “deep transformation process which rethinks the entire life cycle of products, developing new savages and professions … and contributing to a more circular economy,” said society in a press release.
It is a leviathan of a problem and at present, Nevold is hardly more than a vairon.
Basically, three companies that Chanel has created or acquired in recent years: the recycling agent L’Atelier des Matières, which links brands to an ecosystem of optimized solutions for their textile waste, their unused tissue and their inveillance inventory; Spinning milling of 50 years of the park, specializing in wires made from recycled materials; and an authentic material specializing in leather.
The idea is that companies are raising the waste generated by Chanel and other customers and will transform it into “new materials for tomorrow” which can be used by the house, but also sold to other brands and industries.
“It is not a question of Chanel who recovers his waste to do Chanel,” said Pavlovsky. “It is Chanel who covers Chanel waste and that on the market that (is) ready to sell us the waste to recreate a new type of material.”
NEVOLD envisages acquisitions to accelerate its current capacities and explore partnerships with other sectors, such as sports and hospitality, to guarantee a second life for materials that no longer meet the standards of the luxury market, added Pavlovsky. For example, so far, the company has found the recycling leather in a material adapted to the manufacture of a high-end handbag is a non-starter, but the final product could be used to replace common plastic, such as high heels and reinforcements for shoes and handbags.
Chanel is not the only luxury giant who dabbles in space. Last year, LVMH said that it had spent around 200,000 € ($ 225,000) to support the development of closed loop recycling systems capable of transforming old materials and the unused stock into new fabrics and wires for its fashion and leather houses. It plans to increase its level of investment to € 300,000 this year. Gucci-Owner Kering has invested money in French recycling cases revalorem and Site Relocates Goleclclation.
The question of whether these efforts represent more than a few green windows for companies that generate many multiple of these investments thanks to the sale of new products that contribute to the very problem they are trying to solve will depend on their development.
Critics argue The fact that the interest of fashion for recycling does not do much to limit the impact of industry if companies also continue to continue growth by producing more and more units. This is particularly true if brands turn to recycling as a tool to manage overproduction and eliminate excess stocks. Mass market brands like Nike have already be under fire For the shredding of new products that they could not sell in recycling factories.
This decision also comes as luxury sales suffer from Trump’s trade war and the growing consumer skepticism about the value proposal offered by brands that have increased prices without corresponding innovation. Chanel, who has made some of the most impactful price increases in the industry, has seen fall in sales Last year for the first time since 2020.
Pavlovsky has refused to disclose the quantity of Chanel in NEVOLD so far, or the level of expenditure of the company plans to devote to the company in the future. Until the company is more developed, it will be a cost center, not a profit manufacturer, he said.
“We must still invest money,” added Pavlovsky. “It’s a new business. This is not a big business, but it is something I think we will talk about more and more about it. ”