The Connect Fashion Global initiative aims at solving circularity’s transparency challenge by creating digital infrastructure to enable data sharing across the apparel industry’s value chain. The vision is for brands to attach a physical identifier to each garment, which will link to its digital identity or twin on the web, when scanned. This will include detailed information on an item’s bill of materials, authenticity, product details, dye process, manufacturing location, recycling instructions and anything else a brand might want to communicate down the value chain. A garment will be scanned during its life, creating a digital passport or record of its movement along its lifecycle.

The project’s founding partners include: Target, H&M, Microsoft, Waste Management and PVH Corp. Access to an item’s digital twin would reduce the time it takes to renew a product and get it available for sale. In other words, resale will be cheaper and easier than it is now with the help of an end to end connected system.

From growing re-commerce market to innovative new approaches to prototyping, textile dyeing, material selection and recycling, the circular opportunity for apparel is beginning to take shape. However, despite improvements across the apparel value chain, a truly circular system will require alignment and connection between these disparate projects.