Los Angeles-based It Girl outfitter Reformation resonates with women shoppers largely because of two essential factors: its swoon-worthy designs and its commitment to sustainability.
The label was established with the founding principle of creating new from old; its first dresses were crafted using deadstock fabrics, which the brand still employs in some of its product lines today. But 15 years since those early garments hit the market, Reformation is still forging a unique growth path, expanding both its global reach and its reputation for promoting eco-conscious design.
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While the mid-size brand doesn’t have the same penetration as the world’s biggest players, it has come to represent a bellwether for the industry when it comes to the marketability of circular products. It’s a role that’s not without its challenges, according to chief sustainability officer and vice president of operations Kathleen Talbot.
The brand has always kept a small material roster—much of the products in its line are made from cotton, some recycled, some regenerative, Tencel Lyocell, viscose, and recycled animal fibers like cashmere and wool. The brand also uses silk across its occasion wear.
With an eye toward limiting the use of virgin synthetics and finding replacements for environmentally taxing inputs like silk, Ref has been developing partnerships with next-generation material suppliers in recent seasons. Most recently, the company announced a partnership with fellow L.A. upstart Ambercycle, launching several pieces with the textile-to-textile recycler’s Cycora regenerated polyester last week.
“The reason we’re we were interested in a solution like Cycora is twofold: one is, even if we’re not using a lot of synthetics in our new developments and everything else, there’s still just so much of this fiber”—polyester—”already on the planet,” Talbot told Sourcing Journal. “It’s already extracted, already knit and spun, and what are we going to do with it? What are the solutions to actually make sure that it remains a productive material and stays in the fashion system?”
Ambercycle’s innovation, which relies on a proprietary molecular regeneration process to strip polyester from blended textiles and render it back into a pelletized form that can be extruded into both staple and filament fibers, answers those questions.
“The second reason is, we do have some fabrications, especially some of the occasion wear, which are key performance indicators of why we’re still using synthetics. We don’t have a great alternative for them yet,” she explained. The brand’s long-term strategy is to invest in both circular solutions like Cycora and biosynthetics that begin to scale in the market. “We’re parallel-pathing them together,” she said.
This spring, Ref relaunched swimwear with a small collection made from Econyl regenerated nylon leftovers from its last line drop in 2019 as well as Evo, a bio-based yarn made from derivatives of castor oil and corn by Italian material sciences company Fulgar. And January saw the launch of dresses for the brand’s bridal collection made with Eastman’s Naia Renew, a silk replacement made from recycled waste, certified recycled cellulose and wood pulp.
These innovations have shown considerable potential for the brand when it comes to providing attractive canvases for its designs. “These are actual solutions for these categories—but you still blend them with a little bit of synthetic to get the function and the performance from the fabric,” Talbot explained.
In short, it’s tough, if not impossible at this juncture, for Ref to ditch synthetics completely. But as an industry leader in the push for a healthier supply chain, it’s been tasked with shepherding consumers along the bumpy road to greener pastures.
According to Talbot, the team frequently fields consumer questions about why it’s still sourcing deadstock fabrics that contain synthetics. And a quick search on the r/Reformation subreddit turns up disgruntled comments from shoppers wondering why they’re being asked to pay a premium for clothes that contain petroleum-based inputs, even if they are recycled.
“I’ve been really surprised at the level of engagement we’re getting directly from customers who are frankly upset or not understanding why they are purchasing something Reformation and finding that it has synthetic content,” she said. “But, if anything, I find that to be an interesting indicator—that the customer is actually asking these questions.”
“I think that that consideration is good,” she added. “But I think trying to show the value of the investment in some of these preferred materials, that are frankly going to be [purchased] at a premium, is hard.” According to Talbot, these are early days, and the “perceived value isn’t there” for some shoppers yet.
Because the adoption of next-gen solutions is still in its nascency, the brand has absorbed some of the additional costs. “But at the end of the day, it is going to be on us to find a way to market things. To think about the product strategy and what feels like the right value for the money and the right applications, so that it doesn’t become a friction point.”
Though these new materials and technologies are complex, Talbot said it’s important to keep things high level in communicating with shoppers who might not have the time to deep dive into production processes. Instead, she said it’s critical to convey where the brand is on its journey, and why it’s choosing to make the moves it’s making.
“In talking about textile-to-textile recycling, we’re trying to differentiate and distinguish that as a next step,” she said, referring to the Cycora rollout. “We’re saying, ‘This didn’t come from a plastic bottle; this came from textile waste that we can use again.’ That, I think, does resonate with the customer.”
The brand is also deepening its commitment to promoting resale as a means of lengthening a product’s lifecycle and ensuring it stays out of landfills.
On Tuesday, Ref launched a one-click resale integration with online marketplace Poshmark. Customers can list their pre-owned Reformation products for sale by visiting the “order history” page on the brand’s e-commerce site and clicking “resell on Poshmark.” This brings them to a completed listing on the Poshmark platform, saving them the effort of typing out item details and adding photos.
“We’ve had a lot of resale partnerships over the years,” Talbot said, noting that engaging with platforms like Poshmark and longtime partner ThredUp is a natural fit, because online resale is “how a lot of Reformation customers are already shopping and selling.”
“It lets re-engage our customers and add value to our customers,” she added. Seeing how Ref pieces retain their sales value in the secondary market gives first-time shoppers confidence that they can leverage the resale economy to eventually recoup some of the cost of their initial purchase. “With a premium brand, our stuff really should be more designed for resale or many exchanges” before it ends up in a take-back bin for recycling or is wholly discarded, Talbot believes.
But as is true for any apparel brand, it all starts with the sale. “It’s tricky. We’re brand, we are making stuff, and we’re trying to figure out what our role is and how we genuinely and effectively talk about consumption habits,” she said. “We are trying to sell you something. But we hope that there’s a value proposition there beyond just the product itself.”
