Why has circularity failed in fashion?

Circularity has failed in fashion because brands treat it as an endpoint rather than a design intent. According to Adam Barukowitz of Return to Vendor, the industry applies circular thinking as a band-aid to a linear model rather than restructuring sourcing and design from the start. The economics compound the problem: the fashion industry is multi-trillion dollars, yet investment in circular infrastructure remains in the millions. Sustainability departments at the world's largest retailers are typically staffed by two people with no budget, while marketing teams spend without limit.

What is the difference between recycling and circularity in fashion?

Recycling is a downstream fix applied to a product that was never designed to be recovered — it is, as Return to Vendor co-founder Adam Barukowitz puts it, 'a band-aid on a broken industry.' Circularity is a system design principle: it requires that sourcing, design, manufacturing, and end-of-life recovery are planned as a closed loop from the beginning. A garment made for recycling uses a single material throughout — no mixed fibers, no polyester thread in a nylon product — so that it can re-enter the supply chain as feedstock rather than going to landfill.

What is monomaterial design in fashion and why does it matter?

Monomaterial design means constructing a garment from a single material type throughout — including thread, buttons, labels, and all components — so that the finished product can be recycled without material separation. Return to Vendor uses recycled nylon as its monomaterial because nylon is already recyclable when uncontaminated and is recognized as a preferred material under EU eco-design regulation. A nylon tote sewn with a polyester thread cannot be recycled; the same bag sewn with a nylon thread can. Monomaterial design closes the gap between a product's manufacture and its end-of-life recovery.

What does Return to Vendor do?

Return to Vendor (RTV) is a circular materials platform co-founded by Adam Barukowitz and built on a monomaterial design ethos using recycled nylon. The company sources post-industrial and post-consumer nylon — including fishing nets — and offers fashion brands a turnkey circularity solution: redesigning products for end-of-life recyclability, building the supply chain infrastructure to recover materials, and using recovered nylon as future feedstock. RTV also has a science team working to add new performance properties to recycled nylon while maintaining its recyclability. It is the commercial evolution of Barukowitz's 20-year clothing collection business, Wearable Collections.

What simple changes can fashion brands make to design for circularity?

According to Adam Barukowitz of Return to Vendor, the most impactful changes for fashion brands designing for circularity are often the simplest: replacing polyester thread with nylon thread in nylon products, switching to nylon buttons and labels, and eliminating material combinations that make a garment unrecyclable. These tweaks cost little but determine whether a product can re-enter a closed-loop supply chain. Beyond components, brands need to adopt a monomaterial design ethos from the start of product development — choosing a recyclable base material and ensuring no contaminating materials are introduced at any point in the manufacturing process.

How does the e-commerce returns problem affect fashion sustainability?

E-commerce returns have significantly worsened fashion's sustainability problem. The free returns model — normalized during the COVID-era e-commerce boom when one brand adopted it and others followed — created a system where consumers routinely buy multiple sizes or styles, try them, and return the remainder. Returned items vary in condition: some can go back on the rack immediately, but many come back slightly damaged or stained and require alternative disposition. Without a circularity infrastructure, a significant portion of returned fashion inventory ends up in landfill rather than resale, reuse, or material recovery.

Monomaterial Fashion & Circularity

Return to Vendor co-founder Adam Barukowitz argues that fashion circularity has stalled because brands treat it as an endpoint rather than a design intent. Drawing on 20 years running Wearable Collections — one of New York’s first clothing collection operations — Barukowitz explains how monomaterial design, closed-loop supply chains, and treating end-of-life materials as feedstock from day one are the only path out of the linear trap.

The fashion industry has been talking about circularity for a decade. It still hasn’t happened. Adam Barukowitz has a clear diagnosis: the industry is working within the confines of a broken model and calling that progress.

Barukowitz is co-founder and chief recycling officer at Return to Vendor (RTV), a circular materials platform built on a single conviction — that nylon, ubiquitous in fishing nets and post-industrial waste streams, is already recyclable and already preferred by EU eco-design standards. That conviction didn’t come from a sustainability consultancy. It came from 20 years on the ground in New York City, running Wearable Collections, collecting the city’s clothing waste before ‘circularity’ was a word anyone in fashion used.

Why does circularity keep stalling?

In this conversation with Arthur Zaczkiewicz, Barukowitz strips the concept back to its economics. Why does circularity keep stalling? Because a multi-trillion dollar industry is celebrating million-dollar investments. Because sustainability departments at the world’s largest retailers are staffed by two people with no budget, while marketing teams spend without limit. Because a nylon tote bag gets sewn with a polyester thread — not for any technical reason, but because nobody in the supply chain is responsible for what happens at end of life.

The fix, Barukowitz argues, is not a program. It’s a design posture. Monomaterial from the start. The nylon thread. The nylon button. The nylon label. Small choices that determine whether a garment can close the loop — or becomes feedstock for a landfill. Tune in for one of the clearest-eyed assessments of fashion’s circular gap you’ll hear this year.

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Ep. #025: ‘Circularity Is Where You Begin’ — Adam Barukowitz, Return to Vendor

Why does circularity keep stalling?