Unspun Launches its Most Sustainable Jeans Yet

Producing a single pair of jeans today requires an immense amount of water and energy, and produces a significant amount of pollution. Developed as part of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s Jeans Redesign program, the jeans solve for these challenges by combining the unspun company’s inventory-free systems of production with pioneering globally available best-in-class materials like Resortecs® smart stitch threads (which can be heated and dissolved to make recycling more feasible) and a scannable QR Code to provide customers circular care instructions, and share key circularity data with resellers and recyclers.

unspun, the 3D body scan jeans company named one of TIME magazine’s “Best Inventions of 2019” and Popular Science magazine’s “Best of What’s New 2020,” has launched Genesis, its most sustainable pair of jeans yet.

Powered by EON’s Internet of Things platform for connected products, a scannable QR code integrated into each pair of Genesis jeans makes it possible to track the origins and record the life of the garment, ensuring the product and its materials can be identified and authenticated for resale and recycling from one life cycle to the next. The QR code also creates an opportunity to engage with and support customers by delivering information about product care, resale and recycling. Each product is digitized in alignment with Eon’s CircularID™ Protocol, ensuring the product carries all the information essential to inform resale (i.e. product name, original price, etc,) and recycling (i.e, material content, chemicals, etc).

Because the capacity to recycle denim at scale is critical to unlocking a new circular model for denim at scale, unspun’s new Genesis jeans are also a powerful demonstration of how the capacity of innovative systems design, leading-edge materials and emerging technology can be harnessed to create garments that not only advance reductions in water, energy pollution and waste but also enable the tracking, identification and channeling of garments around the circular supply chain in a continuous lifecycle.

“By digitizing every pair of Genesis jeans using Eon’s Internet of Things technology to connect each garment to customers, resellers and recyclers, unspun is moving circular denim from a theory and a concept to a fully enabled system,” said Natasha Franck, Eon founder and CEO. “In the same way unspun pioneered 3D body scanning technology to make an inventory-free production system reality, leveraging Eon’s connected products platform makes tracking, authenticating, managing and even monetizing garments from one lifecycle to the next a globally scalable proposition and an exciting reality.”

"Unspun’s innovative solutions to meet the Jeans Redesign Guidelines to ensure that jeans are durable, recyclable, contain safe inputs and can be easily traceable, demonstrates the power of collaboration across the fashion industry,” said Laura Balmond, Make Fashion Circular Programme Manager - Ellen MacArthur Foundation. “This is an exciting step forward towards circular design for fashion."

“At unspun, technology is part of our DNA. From the mobile phone scanning technology that enables us to make custom fitted jeans unique to each customer, to the high tech Resortecs smart stitch threads that facilitate the circular capacity of our new Genesis jeans, we intentionally design-in materials and systems that ensure our jeans are better fitting, better looking and simply better because they are sustainable. With the launch of our Genesis jeans featuring a scannable CircularID™ data powered by the Eon connected products platform, we are thrilled to establish a new model for circular denim. We hope Genesis serves as a showcase for how all players across the supply chain can work together to bring more sustainable product to market, advancing the fashion industry further towards the goal of a fully circular model that operates in harmony with our planet,” said Annika Visser, unspun Operations Lead.

Resortecs smart stitching threads are designed to facilitate denim recycling by making garment disassembly faster and easier. The threads can be heated and dissolved, making it easier to separate and sort a range of textiles and finishes, from denim to buttons and zippers.

The CircularID™ Protocol developed by Eon in partnership with leading global fashion brands and industry is the global language for connected products. Eon’s platform supports the communication and data exchange between brands and circular partners using the CircularID protocol.