A series where we hear from retail’s movers and shakers about how they are tackling the challenge of becoming a greener business in an industry that is far from green – assessing organisational change, eco initiatives, and much more.
Back in late June, when the England men’s football team’s World Cup campaign was just starting to gain momentum and UK consumers were melting in the first of the summer heatwaves, Uniqlo launched Everyday Re:Imagined.
The ten-piece collection created from returned Uniqlo items in collaboration with graduates from the BA Fashion course at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London, was placed in 15 stores across Europe. The fashion retailer’s range was developed using items that may have been damaged or imperfect and therefore discarded, and the upcycled garments were promoted alongside new items on the shopfloor.
Uniqlo’s goal was to raise the profile of preloved and upcycling in mainstream fashion, and set a template for future work in this space. So, how did it go and what does the future hold?
‘Innovation doesn’t have to start with new’: Uniqlo unveils Everyday Re:Imagined
Green Retail World caught up with Uniqlo’s head of sustainability for its Europe business, Maria Samoto le Dous, to get the lowdown.
Returned garments now one-of-a-kind pieces
The initial response to Everyday Re:Imagined appears to have given Uniqlo plenty of encouragement.
“Since its debut in June, it has drawn an impressive and positive response from Uniqlo customers across its 15 European locations,” Samoto le Dous says.
A key part of the appeal, she explains, has been the fact that customers are not simply looking at another standardised fashion collection.
“Shoppers [have been] engaging directly with the storytelling behind each piece, given that no two garments are exactly alike,” she says.
That individuality has translated into a different kind of shopping experience.
“The one-of-a-kind, hand-finished nature of the collection has proven particularly popular, encouraging customers to spend longer in-store examining each item within the collection,” the head of sustainability adds.
For Uniqlo, the response is significant because it suggests circular fashion can compete on the wow factor, rather than relying solely on an environmental message.
“The strength of this interest has reinforced our belief that customers are increasingly receptive to circular fashion when it is made more desirable through genuine design quality and craftsmanship,” she says.
That thinking was central to the project from the outset. Rather than treating unwanted or imperfect clothing as a waste problem alone, Everyday Re:Imagined was intended to demonstrate its creative potential.
“The collection was developed to give returned Uniqlo items, including pieces that may be damaged or otherwise imperfect, a renewed life rather than allowing them to be discarded,” says Samoto le Dous.
The approach, she adds, is about “extending the lifecycle of existing garments, reducing textile waste and solving customer returns”.
The Central Saint Martins collaboration was another important part of the equation. Graduates from the BA Fashion course were brought into contact with a real-world circular design challenge, introducing new creative thinking into Uniqlo’s existing infrastructure.
Through the partnership, Uniqlo wanted to show that innovation does not necessarily require the creation of something entirely new.
“We ultimately want to demonstrate that fashion innovation does not always begin with new materials, but can instead begin by seeing the quality and possibility of what is already out there,” Samoto le Dous says.
Blueprint not a one-off
The question now is whether Everyday Re:Imagined can move beyond an interesting experiment and become a repeatable part of Uniqlo’s business.
According to Samoto le Dous, that is precisely the intention.
“Everyday Re:Imagined has been designed with scalability in mind from the outset and this is not a one-off trial but part of a longer-term sustainability strategy,” she says.
There is, however, an important distinction between creating ten highly individual pieces and rolling out an upcycled collection at the scale of Uniqlo’s core LifeWear ranges.
Each garment is handcrafted by skilled tailors at Re.Uniqlo Studio, meaning the model cannot simply be replicated using the same production processes as conventional ranges.
“Any expansion would need to account for the fact that each piece is handcrafted individually by skilled tailors at our Re.Uniqlo Studio, a production model that does not scale in the same way as Uniqlo’s LifeWear ranges,” Samoto le Dous explains.
As a result, the retailer expects expansion to be “gradual and considered”, with design quality and craftsmanship taking precedence over speed.
The current collection is being sold in strictly limited quantities and will remain available in stores only while stocks last. But the underlying designs could have a longer life.
“What makes this collection unique lies in the ability to take these designs and continually readapt and reproduce them, incorporating them further over time in response to what customers tell us,” she says.
The ambition is ultimately to “establish a more scalable, enduring model for circular design”, potentially expanding into additional markets and evolving designs seasonally.
The store-only strategy has also been deliberate. The individuality of the garments makes them better suited to a physical environment, where shoppers can see the craftsmanship and try pieces on.
“Each of the ten pieces is unique and expressive and is therefore best experienced and understood in person,” says Samoto le Dous.
The initiative also connects with Uniqlo’s existing Re:Uniqlo Studio network, positioning stores as destinations for repair, remake and upcycled design.
Building circularity into the wider business
Everyday Re:Imagined is therefore not being presented as a standalone sustainability campaign. Instead, Uniqlo sees it as another expression of its broader RE.UNIQLO circularity framework.
“Re. Uniqlo is our circularity framework, built around reducing, reusing, and remaking clothing to keep garments in circulation for longer,” Samoto le Dous says.
The programme has a substantial existing infrastructure behind it. Uniqlo parent company Fast Retailing said it has collected and donated used clothing globally since 2006, with roughly 9.5 million items collected in the fiscal year ending August 2025 and approximately 63.71 million donated cumulatively since the programme began.
Meanwhile, Re.Uniqlo Studio has grown rapidly since launching in 2022, now operating in more than 75 stores across 22 countries.
That growth, Samoto le Dous says, “speaks to the strength of customer demand for these services”.
The next phase of the strategy extends beyond repair and reuse, with Uniqlo also working on more advanced forms of material circularity, including down recovery and molecular recycling of high-polyester garments.
Looking ahead to the remainder of 2026 and into 2027, the sustainability agenda stretches well beyond circularity.
On ethics and human rights, the group is strengthening supply chain due diligence ahead of forthcoming EU legislation, extending traceability audits upstream to cashmere and wool suppliers, and continuing its pursuit of a living wage across the supply chain.
Decarbonisation is another major focus. Uniqlo has increased its 2030 financial year Scope 3 emissions reduction target from 20% to 30%, against a 2019 baseline, having already achieved an 18.6% reduction by 2024. It is also working towards having 50% low-emission or recycled materials and 100% renewable electricity in its stores by the same date.
For Samoto le Dous, the direction of travel is therefore clear: circularity needs to become embedded across the business, rather than existing as a collection of isolated initiatives.
Everyday Re:Imagined offers one particularly visible example of that philosophy. Its significance may ultimately lie less in the ten garments themselves than in what they demonstrate: that returned clothing can become a source of creativity, craftsmanship and commercial possibility.
As Samoto le Dous puts it, the aim is to “draw lessons from this process, refine it continuously” and build a model that can endure.
At Green Retail World, we are giving retail executives and industry leaders, like Maria Samoto le Dous, a chance to explain how they are enacting environmental change within their organisations. Please contact editor, Ben Sillitoe, if you’d like to put yourself forward for an interview on this key subject. Sharing good practice can help the wider sector move in a positive direction.
[image credit: Fast Retailing/Uniqlo]
