For Days clothing line is on a mission to end fashion waste by designing with circularity. All of the Los Angeles-based company’s clothes are made with 100% recyclable materials. The majority of For Days’ items are made from textile waste, meaning they can be easily recycled into rags, filling, or insulation. The business, co-founded by Kristy Caylor in 2018, also educates its customers about the benefits of keeping clothes out of landfills through recycling.
Photo Courtesy For Days
For Days’ Take Back Bags program allows customers to ship any unwanted clothing in exchange for a $20 certificate that they can use on future For Days purchases. That’s $20 to be used toward everything from super soft T-shirts to trendy overalls, comfy dresses, and high-fashion jeans. Every time a consumer buys a Take Back Bag, it saves at least 15 pounds of clothing from going into landfills, a move that also subtracts pounds of carbon emissions from entering the environment.
For Days currently recycles 90% of all returns. Many become new clothing, while items with lesser-quality fibers — up to 40% of what is received — are downcycled into insulation or rags. The old clothes are fiber-to-fiber recycled into these new materials via a circle of company partners, including Recover and Hallotex. According to the business, For Days is the largest direct clothing recycling program to date in the United States, diverting 3 million garments — more than 1 million pounds of clothing from landfills. The move also saves 3.2 gallons of water and 24 million pounds of carbon emissions.
Photo Courtesy For Days
“Most of what we’re seeing coming back to us are a lot of truly used clothes,” Caylor told “Forbes.” “There might be the odd shirt that was a trendy color or seasonal, but most of it is staples, like old white and black tees, that people use every day.”
Circularity design is a critical new approach to solving the immense clothing waste problem facing the planet. With 85% of used clothes ending up in landfills worldwide, circularity is a system based on the idea that all clothing is sourced, produced, and provided in a way that it can circulate through society responsibly as long as it can be used. Once no longer suitable, the items must be safely returned to the planet via a new use or a pollution-free return to the Earth.
Photo Courtesy For Days
For Days accepts drop-offs and mail-ins of clothes of any kind. The company often partners with local businesses such as Ventura’s Humblemaker Coffee and Montecito’s Pressed Juicery for drop-off locations.
The firm has also made trips across the country, including Texas, Tennessee, and New York, to collect more fashion items.
The Take Back Bags program allows a bag to be mailed in from anywhere. The company’s efforts have not gone unnoticed. In fact, For Days has inspired other clothing companies, including Bombas and Maisonnette, to create similar programs. Caylor has found that the circularity efforts aren’t just good for the environment; it’s good for business.
“But also the take back approach is also good for business, because it keeps people in the system, and connected to a brand,” she said to “Forbes.”
