Circ and Zara’s Second Collaboration Shows What Circular Materials Can Do

PARIS — Zara and Circ are coming full circle with their second tie up. Following their first collaboration last spring, the high street retailer and the textile technology company are launching their second capsule collection, which drops Thursday.

The new pieces are completely made from Circ Lyocell, which is sourced from 50 percent recycled poly-cotton textile waste, and 50 percent FSC-certified wood pulp. Its patented process separates the natural and synthetic material blend.

This time around Circ worked with high-end Italian mills on the textile; the Zara design team wanted to elevate the new iteration and play with it in new ways. The result is a series of more architectural looks, including a structured minidress, an long dress with an open-back looped top and pencil skirt among the lineup.

“It’s really important for us that we don’t just do this at a very high price point that is not attainable for people,” Circ chief executive officer Peter Majeranowski told WWD of working with the high street behemoth. “If we want to move the needle on protecting the planet from clothing, we really need to focus on the mass market and make sure circularity is affordable.”

The four-piece collection is Circ’s second with Zara as the textile recycling company continues to scale up its production capacity, and brands across the spectrum seek out more sustainable solutions.

“These collections help showcase to the market that circular materials can work in a lot of different applications, and that’s necessary for us to secure long term purchase agreements from brands, which unlock financing,” he said.

“In these collaborations, I talk about distilling the science and technology into this beautiful [clothing], but it does even more than that. It helps align all parts of that ecosystem in a very simple visual way to realize, OK, this solution is ready. Now we can come together and make this scale.”

Majeranowski highlighted the need for industry-wide collaboration on sustainable solutions, all the way from mills to the sales floor.

The next step in that scaling up is opening a new factory with an annual capacity of 65,000 tons.

The U.S.-based company is currently exploring sites in Europe and Asia. Europe is of particular interest as the 27-country bloc starts to implement stricter recycling and circular design rules in 2026. That final location decision is expected soon, with an eye toward opening in 2025.

Zara parent company Inditex was part of a $30 million Series B funding round for Circ back in July 2022, led by Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Ventures. Circ closed another $25 million round with European online fashion giant Zalando, global materials science company Avery Dennison and Korean manufacturer Youngone in March, and also received a funding injection from Drive Capital, the venture capital arm of Tiawanese polyester producer giant Far Eastern Group in May.

The additional financing is strong statement to the industry after a tumultuous year in the sustainable materials space, with Sweden’s once-promising Renewcell declaring bankruptcy back in February.

In June, the company also launched Circ-Ready, a global network of supply chain partners from processors, manufacturers and other proven industry players to work with. It should help smooth over any roadblocks in getting the Circ products through the global production pipelines.

But one of the biggest challenges to making lasting change in the fashion industry is pairing sustainability with style that consumers want to buy, Majeranowski said. “It’s very personal, and it’s really hard to fight that. That’s where we’re very hopeful around circularity, because we see this as a way to not be so extractive and using natural resources, and instead just keep those materials circulating.”

Following the Zara collaboration, Circ has “a nice schedule, a cadence of collaborations and collections” that are scheduled for the coming seasons with different brands, assuring there is more to come.

Majeranowski added that Circ is establishing long-term partnerships with brands. “We only will work with brands that want to be on that [scaling] journey with us. We’re not interested in just doing like one-off, small capsules.”

He added that big brands are increasingly willing to work with new technology and materials as they seek to hit sustainability targets — plus navigate changing public sentiment on the environmental impact of the fashion industry led by younger consumers and widespread on social media. All of those factors are pointing to systemic change, he added.

“We’ve been doing this for seven years now, and the tone and the feel in the market is dramatically different — even dramatically different than from two years ago.”