Sustainable circular fashion brand, Rapanui, has said that consumers could save almost £27,000 by using an eco-friendly “capsule wardrobe”.
Rapanui describes capsule wardrobes as a current social media trend with 286.4M views on TikTok and over 39k Google searches this year alone. It is a minimalist approach to building a small collection of fashion items that can be used to create several different outfits with carefully selected pieces that will stay in style for longer.
Rapanui says it operates with a circular production process. When an item is worn out, consumers can send it back to be recycled to produce new clothing and to reduce unnecessary waste, each printed item is produced in real-time.
Rapanui estimates that consumers who use a capsule wardrobe can save the following on their clothing and footwear:
| Clothes8 | Average lifespan per item (years)9 | How many clothing items are needed during lifetime10 | Amount spent on clothing item over lifetime11 |
| T-shirts and tops | 2.74 | 23 | £336.95 |
| Pants | 2.81 | 22 | £547.36 |
| Dresses | 3.62 | 17 | £820.25 |
| Skirts | 5.62 | 11 | £530.75 |
| Outerwear (jackets/coats) | 4.58 | 13 | £685.75 |
| Shoes | 112 | 63 | £3,388.14 |
| Total: | 149 | £6,309.20 |
Supply Chain Lead at Rapanui, Rheanna Coleman, offers this advice to consumers who want their clothes to live out their lifespan: “Always follow the wash care label on the individual pieces of clothing to make sure that you’re not causing any damage or shrinking items, making them unwearable.
“Aside from specific steps we’d recommend a cool wash at 30 and hang drying products to ensure longevity and reduce the environmental impact of the washing process.”
Co-founder of sustainable merch platform Teemill, Mart Drake-Knight, said about brands that operate with a circular production process: “In a circular process products are designed from the start to be remade. That means materials flow back to the maker and the new product is made from the old product.
“It is different from recycling, or upcycling, where the material is turned into something different before it is then thrown away. Circular fashion is infinite because by design the material flows in a loop.”