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Cherish Waste: A New Sustainable Collection for H&M

The Swedish brand recently launched the latest instalment of its sustainable collections in the Innovation Stories series.

by : Alex Gonthier- May 6th, 2022

H&M

H&M’s Cherish Waste collection aims to present stylish pieces with sustainability at its core. The pieces are made from recycled clothing, ocean plastic and other waste materials. The goal of Cherish Waste? Allowing consumers to fall in love with materials made from eco-friendly resources. “The design team wanted to create a collection inspired by love, intimacy and bonding, not just with each other, but with our wardrobes. Each piece was designed to allow the wearer to express their true personality and values using materials that combat waste. Once they get all the love from these items, we hope they will pass them on to someone else,” says Ella Soccorsi, a designer at H&M.

The dresses, shirts, skirts and various accessories are made from MIRUM®, recycled silk and AirCarbon™ – a biomaterial produced by natural micro-organisms that use air and carbon from greenhouse gases that would otherwise pollute the atmosphere.

H&M

“This is the fifth collection we’ve featured in Innovation Stories, and each time we focus on a new aspect of sustainability, so that ultimately it all leads us to our goal of being fully circular and sustainable by 2040. We are constantly learning and there is still a lot to do,” says Abigail Kammerzell, H&M’s Director of Sustainability for North America.

For accessories – bracelets, necklaces, shoes – the brand has opted for plastic-free vegetable leather made from plant fibres. Along with this, the jewellery from this collection is made using AirCarbon™.

H&M

A Q&A with Ann-Sofie Johansson, Creative Advisor at H&M

What has been your consumers’ reaction to the Innovation Stories initiative?

“We’ve had a very positive reaction to the Innovation Stories initiative since we launched the platform at the beginning of 2021. Innovation Stories is dedicated to promoting more sustainable technologies and production processes – something our customers are very engaged with and interested in learning more about. We’ve launched five collections now under the Innovation Stories umbrella, each with a specific focus – such as animal-free fibers or circularity – and we’ve used many cutting-edge materials and processes along the way. It’s exciting for us at H&M because we are committed to taking the lessons we’ve learnt in Innovation Stories and implementing them in other areas of the business in the
future.”

What have been the biggest challenges through this project?

“With Innovation Stories we set ourselves the challenge of working with more sustainably sourced materials, which sounds simple but is a project that has to be viewed with a longterm perspective. We often spend years tracking the progress of a particular innovation so that once it has hit a scalable level, and guarantees the high quality we demand at H&M, we can utilize it in our collections. Silk is something we’ve been focusing on in recent seasons, for instance, and we’re thrilled that we are finally able to use recycled silk that
feels luxurious in this latest collection.”

Could you tell us more about the creative process?

“Innovation Stories has a dedicated design team that works in parallel with H&M’s sustainability department to bring the most cutting-edge fabrics and sustainable processes to our customers. The design team has a fashion concept for the season, often informed by travel, or by a movie or an art show, but often just by a mood or a feeling – in this case, we were thinking about love in all its forms and expressions. We then work to execute a collection using the most sustainably sourced materials and processes at our disposal, in dialogue with the sustainability team. There’s a lot of flexibility required, and a lot of communication with suppliers to keep the collaboration going at all times.”