Would a Regenerative Model Even Be Possible in Fashion?

We hesitate to say it, but the concept of sustainability has begun to feel like old news in the broader climate and ecological discourse. A few years into its widespread adoption, it has proved (at least in part) insufficient for the scale of the challenge ahead.

Sustainability in fashion largely is concerned with reducing harm; lowering emissions, using recycled fibres, improving supply chain efficiency. It was the answer to our initial wake-up call and moment of reckoning, but its limitations are that it seeks to mildly sustain the deeper structural issues at play. The problem of environmental degradation and extractive production is so vast and deeply embedded in the industry’s structure, it has become clear that if fashion is to have any meaningful future, a far more rigorous framework is required.

This is where regeneration comes in, which we could term as the younger (and bolder) successor to sustainability. Regenerative fashion proposes a vision that is far more restorative and systemic, and at its core is the idea that production can be designed to be inherently life-supporting; that within the very act of making, systems can exist that actively restore ecosystems, strengthen communities, and leave landscapes healthier than they were before production began.

With regeneration, sustainability almost becomes unnecessary as a goal in itself, because the system is no longer organised around reducing damage that never occurred in the first place. Instead, it centres on creating the conditions for life - people and planet – to flourish. The ambition is to participate in cycles that actively repair and renew the ecological and social systems on which fashion ultimately depends.

The concept of regeneration originates in ecological science and regenerative agriculture. In farming, regenerative systems are designed to rebuild soil fertility, increase biodiversity, restore water cycles, and support microbial life within the soil. Healthy soil is understood as a living ecosystem composed of bacteria, fungi, insects and microorganisms that regulate nutrient exchange, water retention and carbon storage. In this model, the very act of production actively improves ecological conditions over time.

Translating these principles into fashion immediately reveals the scale of the challenge. Clothing production begins with raw materials (cotton, wool, leather, viscose, synthetics) each embedded in complex environmental systems. Cotton farming affects soil and water systems; livestock grazing shapes grassland ecosystems; synthetic fibres depend on fossil fuel extraction. From there, fibres pass through spinning, dyeing, processing, manufacturing, shipping, retail and disposal; ach stage carries immense environmental and social consequences.

For fashion to become genuinely regenerative, every stage of this chain would need to contribute positively to ecological and social systems rather than simply minimising harm.

A growing number of brands are beginning to explore what this might look like in practice. Among the most influential examples is Story mfg., the British label founded in 2013 by husband-and-wife duo Saeed Al-Rubeyi and Katy Al-Rubeyi. From its earliest collections, Story mfg. positioned itself as a counterpoint to industrial fashion production. Rather than treating sustainability as a technological problem to be solved through new materials or efficiency gains, the brand approached clothing through the lens of regenerative craft, land stewardship and cultural continuity.

Story mfg.’s garments are produced using organic fibres, natural dye processes, and handcraft techniques such as block printing, hand knitting and hand weaving. These methods are slower and more labour-intensive than industrial production, but they reflect an ecological finesse; fewer chemical inputs, lower energy consumption, and the preservation of textile traditions that historically operated within regional ecological limits. Similarly, they work closely with communities around the world, ensuring that their brand actively facilitates the economic and social resilience of the people involved in making the garments. Rather than donating a portion of profits to distant causes, Story mfg. embeds its values directly into the structure of its production relationships.

Equally important is the brand’s commitment to transparency. Story mfg. frequently highlights the artisans and small-scale production communities involved in its supply chain, challenging the anonymity that characterises most global manufacturing. In doing so, the brand points toward a dimension of regeneration that is overlooked; the restoration of craft knowledge systems displaced by industrialisation.

The label’s ongoing collaboration with ASICS demonstrated how these principles might translate into a larger commercial context. Reworking the Japanese sportswear company’s GEL-Venture 6 sneaker, Story mfg. introduced natural dye techniques and hand-crafted detailing into a mass-market silhouette. The collaboration was significant as a cultural intervention, bringing the aesthetics and philosophy of slow craft into dialogue with the scale and speed of global sportswear production. It suggested that regenerative thinking has the power to influence mainstream fashion, through strategic infiltration by integrity-led brands.

Where Story mfg. approaches regeneration through craft and cultural stewardship, the New York–based label Another Tomorrow offers a different model; one grounded in traceability, economic governance and regenerative agriculture, all through a decidedly luxurious lens.

Founded in 2020 by former finance executive Vanessa Barboni Hallik, Another Tomorrow was built on the premise that fashion’s environmental impact cannot be separated from its social and economic structures. From the outset, the company integrated regenerative agriculture, transparent supply chains and strong labour governance into its operating model.

 

One of the brand’s core initiatives focuses on regenerative wool production. By working with farms that practise regenerative grazing, Another Tomorrow supports livestock management systems that rebuild soil health and increase grassland biodiversity. Rotational grazing encourages root growth in pasture plants, allowing soils to store more carbon and retain water more effectively. In this system, fibre production becomes part of a broader ecological cycle rather than a purely extractive process.

At the same time, the company has invested heavily in traceability technologies, allowing garments to be digitally tracked through the supply chain. Each piece of clothing carries a digital identity that records information about fibre origins, farm practices and manufacturing partners. This infrastructure is designed to increase transparency for consumers and to create accountability across production networks.

Another Tomorrow’s governance model reflects a similar commitment to systemic change. The company operates as a benefit corporation, legally binding it to social and environmental goals alongside financial performance. Long-term partnerships with producers are prioritised over short-term sourcing strategies, reinforcing the idea that regeneration depends on stable relationships between land, labour and industry.

Together, Story mfg. and Another Tomorrow illustrate two distinct pathways toward regenerative fashion, with one foregrounding craft knowledge and cultural repair; the other focuses on agricultural systems and traceable supply chains. Both labels recognise that regeneration is a network of practices operating across ecological and social domains, and that their brands can be harnessed as vehicles for meaningful systemic change.

Still, such experiments also reveal the structural difficulty of the concept. The global fashion industry produces an estimated 100 billion garments each year, and even if every fibre were grown regeneratively, the sheer volume of clothing entering the market would still require vast amounts of land, water, labour and energy.

Regeneration raises an obvious question; can an industry built on continuous growth operate within ecological limits?

 

Ecological economics suggests that regenerative systems depend on cycles of growth, decay and renewal rather than indefinite expansion. Natural ecosystems stabilise through dynamic equilibrium, and applying this wisdom to fashion would require profound changes in how clothing is produced, valued and used. Garments would need to last significantly longer, and repair infrastructure and garment care systems would become essential. Fibre agriculture would prioritise soil health and biodiversity over maximum yield.

From our own corner of the industry, in biotechnology, we can also begin to see how this thinking might extend further. Emerging innovations in microbial dyeing, enzyme-based textile processing, and biologically derived materials suggest ways that fashion production could move closer to the cycles and intelligence of living systems. Rather than relying on harsh chemistry and extractive inputs, these technologies work with biological processes, offering a glimpse of how manufacturing itself could begin to participate in regenerative cycles.

In this sense, regeneration has the potential to bypass being a misused marketing term (which sustainability, in many ways, eventually became) and more as a rigorous and exacting benchmark; a way of truly measuring whether fashion’s systems genuinely contribute to ecological and social wellbeing. Measured against that benchmark, most of the industry is obviously not yet regenerative, but the concept remains valuable precisely because it raises the bar.

 

Whether fashion can ultimately meet this standard remains uncertain, but what is clear is that regeneration demands transformations across multiple dimensions at once; agriculture that rebuilds soil, manufacturing aligned with biological cycles, labour systems that support human dignity, and cultural shifts that value longevity over novelty. 

This is the fashion future we want to live within.

Regeneration will certainly take decades to be fashion’s reality, and it may just be the principle that determines whether the industry has a future at all.