US' Avery Dennison partners with The R Collective

Avery Dennison has announced its latest partnership with The R Collective, a social impact, circular fashion brand with a conscience. This collaboration showcases Avery Dennison’s innovative digitally-enabled packaging and labelling solutions, providing a digital experience that immerses consumers in The R Collective’s sustainability story.

Avery Dennison’s Digital Labels, which are attached to the garment, include a QR code that, when scanned, provides instant access to the brand's actions to create responsible products. This information includes how The R Collective reduces fashion’s impact through their newly released product-level carbon and water savings achieved by rescuing waste materials. In a further innovation, the garments are supplied in Avery Dennison’s newly-developed plastic-free garment bag.

The R Collective’s REVIVAL sustainable design project features rescued fabrics from leading global fashion brands and includes top-quality silk, cotton, and jerseys. The garments have been designed by five award-winning sustainable designers from around the world using different textile waste streams to create wearable and commercial womenswear pieces.

Reducing waste is the overarching aim of this partnership, and the plastic-free garment bag is highly transparent, durable through the supply chain and most importantly curbside recyclable, thus reducing fashion waste. The bags provide an alternative to polybags which are commonly used at this stage and are generally only recyclable once or twice. In addition, the plastic-free garment bags, which are digitally enabled, can be used direct-to-the consumer as garment packaging. The collaboration also sees an R Collective branded e-commerce mailer which is made from environmentally friendly kraft paper and can be easily recycled by the consumer, the company said in a press release.

“What’s special about this collaboration, and our ongoing work with The R Collective team, is our joint focus on reducing waste in the fashion industry. Now it’s a case of looking beyond raw materials and ensuring they are renewable, and looking ahead to assess end of life closely too. We are striving to broaden the solutions we offer via extensive research and development. Making Avery Dennison’s packaging solutions recyclable has been a huge focus, as this is a highly effective way to actively reduce waste and promote circularity,” Caroline Hughes, senior product line manager, packaging, Avery Dennison RBIS, said.

“These sustainable packaging innovations are being propelled further by digitisation. In this case, the digital element will enable The R Collective to further educate their customers about the important work they’re doing and can be easily accessed via the QR code on the packaging and through the garments’ Digital Labels,” added Hughes.

“Our core focus at The R Collective is finding new ways to actively reduce fashion waste. Our REVIVAL collection is a very exciting moment for us. Not only is it our most commercial collection to date, it will also launch direct-to-consumer and be available to purchase globally. Avery Dennison’s innovative plastic-free garment bag has enabled us to actively reduce waste via our packaging. We’ve enjoyed working closely with the Avery Dennison team to ensure that our brand story is told every step of the way through the Digital Labels and Digital Packaging Solutions. We’ve taken our focus on packaging and shipping one step further and partnered with UPS to achieve carbon-neutral shipping for this collection too,” Christina Dean, founder and CEO of The R Collective, said.

This partnership is part of a series of innovation-based collaborations that underscore Avery Dennison’s commitment to a circular apparel supply chain, and support its 2030 sustainability goals.