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Topshop UK and Reclaim To Wear

Orsola de Castro and Filippo Ricci, founders of Reclaim To Wear, have collaborated with Topshop in a second capsule collection of up-cycled pieces featuring a printed floral theme for the summer season.

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Topshop seeks to fuse style and sustainability in this partnership. The company website states, “We’re giving a new lease of life to some of the disregarded prints of previous seasons in a nine-piece collection…”. The line features silk camis and high-waisted shorts, knee-length skirts, panelled dresses and oversized shirts. I stopped by Topshop at Oxford Circus to see the Reclaim To Wear collection first hand.

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I tried on the high-waisted shorts. I appreciated the light and delicate silk, with a subtle print. I immediately tweeted de Castro and she was kind enough to retweet and thank me. I liked them so much I bought them for my summer wardrobe. The whole collection is a guilt free indulgence for high street shoppers. Not only is the collection made entirely of discarded textiles and production off-cuts, it is also Made in Britain under fair and safe working conditions, unlike much of the clothing available from high street retailers, including Topshop.

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As early as 1997, de Castro and Ricci were designing with discarded textiles, including dead stock, designer surplus and production off-cuts. Today, Reclaim To Wear has developed important industry partnerships and collaborations with designers, industry insiders, and retailers to reuse textile pre-consumer surplus through up-cycling, by designing beautiful capsule collections for international brands like Topshop. By ensuring less material is wasted, and abandoned stock is not forgotten, Reclaim To Wear has a two-fold positive environmental impact. First, they prevent existing textiles from becoming waste and potential landfill, and second they reduce the extent and impact of the fashion industry’s textile production, which uses enormous amounts of water, chemicals, raw materials, and energy. Adding to their influence in the fashion industry, the pair is also the creative genius behind Estethica, the British Fashion Council’s sustainable initiative during London Fashion Week.

To shop the Topshop Reclaim To Wear collection, with international shipping options, please click here.

Written by Angela Wallace of Sasstainable

Angela Wallace is the founder and editor of www.sasstainable.ca, an expert voice on ethical luxury and sustainable lifestyle. In 2009, she was granted Ryerson University’s Top 30 Under 30 Alumni award, because of her work as a motivational speaker, when she inspired over 30,000 students across North America. In 2013, she completed her MSc in Environmental Management at the University of London, at the Centre for Development, Environment and Policy. Her passion for the environment grew out of her family’s rural property in Raglan, Ontario, now a designated Natural Heritage System area in the Ontario Greenbelt. She is a published writer, contributing articles to Women's Post, Toronto’s leading business magazine for women. She enjoys urban gardening, writing, fashion and yoga and currently lives in Toronto, Canada with her husband, Owen.

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