Scaling circular fashion requires product-level assessment, tailored repair techniques and quality standards that reflect each brand's requirements.
Bleckmann's The Renewal Workshop combines these practices with commercial prioritisation for resale and flexible customer repair processes to help brands extend product lifecycles.
Juliana Pascoal, Global Quality Manager at Bleckmann’s Renewal Workshop, has a history of scaling up fashion circularity. Her previous role was Sustainability Coordinator at premium high-street fashion brand COS, where she oversaw the Europe-wide rollout of its COS Full Circle programme. This brought her into direct contact with the practicalities of realising a brand’s circular vision. In her current role, she supports our clients to make their own sustainability ambitions a reality, one renewed item at a time.
We caught up with Juliana to learn about the process of implementing circular business models at our sites around the world, and the importance of her fashion background.
Design as an enabler for circularity
With a background working as a designer in Brazil, Juliana has a deep connection to the discipline of crafting fashion. From a circular perspective, this gives her valuable insights into how clothing and lifestyle items are constructed. “When I’m evaluating a client’s products to assess their renewal potential, my knowledge of the design process tells me which techniques are going to work best,” she explains. “It also means I speak the ‘same language’ as brand teams on the level of quality management and aesthetic guidelines.”
This insider knowledge becomes a key asset when it comes to renewing high-end products. “Items that are built to last are often some of the hardest to repair,” continues Juliana. “You need to put in a lot of careful work to disassemble them, and that can make the renewal process more time-consuming. That’s why it’s so important to have a diagnosis phase together with the client; it allows you to get aligned on the process guidelines so you can ensure damaged items are triaged properly and treated correctly.”
How can renewal be tailored?
The type of item under consideration has a big impact on which renewal methods are chosen. Operating renewal at scale means combining standardised processes with tailored implementation. “As The Renewal Workshop has grown, we’ve incorporated more techniques, building on learning from experts in categories such as accessories, footwear and luggage,” adds Juliana. “At the same time, each brand’s requirements are unique, and this demands a unique renewal process, from the specific shade of leather edge paint we use for each SKU to the preference for visible versus invisible mending.”
Which circular model a brand has chosen to implement will also have a significant impact on what the renewal process looks like on the shop floor. First, this is visible in which items are in scope for renewal. “With resale, there is a strict sorting process to determine which items will yield a sufficient return on the effort invested in renewing them,” says Juliana. “With customer repair, on the other hand, there’s scope to tackle a wider range of repairs because the customer is often paying for the renewal directly. Our standard operating procedures take all these different considerations into account, and we regularly update them together with the client as their product offering evolves.”
The Renewal Workshop’s ongoing expansion reflects a wider trend in the industry that sees circular models becoming increasingly valuable to shoppers
Spreadsheets and sewing machines
Alongside the technical aspects of the renewal process, building a solid business case is essential to the long-term success of renewal projects. In resale, particularly, a lot of this comes down to the profit calculation governing which items to prioritise for renewal. This upfront assessment is a key part of the client intake process. “With brands, we work out which items they see that are most likely to come in as damaged, then out of those we determine what the most common forms of damage are,” explains Juliana. “This gives us a multi-stage prioritisation approach that lets us set up our renewal workflow for maximum efficiency according to what forms of wear or damage we’re likely to see.”
The changing role of fashion circularity
The Renewal Workshop’s ongoing expansion reflects a wider trend in the industry that sees circular models becoming increasingly valuable to shoppers. There are many reasons behind this shift, including affordability, sustainability and perceived value. This last point is most applicable to Customer Repair, one of Bleckmann’s circular models. “It’s not just about responding to legislation such as the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation,” says Juliana. “Customers are viewing repair services as part of a product’s ‘lifetime value’ and incorporating this into purchase decisions.”
But whichever circular model your brand chooses, its success or failure depends on the people putting it into action. At the heart of Bleckmann’s renewal ecosystem are the talented teams around the world who work hard every day to bring damaged items back to like-new quality and make circular ambitions a reality. “One of the things I find most inspiring about my work is the curiosity and attention to detail you see at every level,” concludes Juliana. “We all know that feeling of satisfaction when you can restore a cherished item and know that you’ve made the day of its current or future owner brighter.”
Want to learn how Bleckmann’s Renewal Workshop can support your brand’s circular ambitions? Get in contact for a free consultation with a Bleckmann expert!
