Belinda Dickson, Founder, Belinda Robertson Cashmere, and Ross Powell have co-founded Cashmere Circle, a service to revive, repair and recycle cashmere garments with Edinburgh University to help luxury fashion move to a circular economy model while boosting textile skills and jobs in the Scottish Borders

The start-up business has partnered with a number of Borders-based experts with the aim of returning the area to its once leading position in the textiles industry, says Edinburgh Innovations. A knowledge transfer program facilitated by Cashmere Circle will ensure skills are retained for the next generation of knitwear experts, it says.

Cashmere Circle aims to be a truly sustainable business – environmentally of course, but also socially, by ensuring jobs and skills are retained in the Borders

Cashmere Circle will also donate 1 per cent of its revenue to Trees for Life, which is rewilding the Scottish Highlands, and has entered an agreement with Oxfam for the charity to divert end-of-life cashmere garments that would otherwise go to landfill.