Calzedonia’s Life Re-Tights project tackles hosiery waste by transforming discarded tights into virgin-quality yarn.
Calzedonia has unveiled a radical reinvention of hosiery waste management: a pilot project that converts used tights back into yarn with quality comparable to virgin fiber. The initiative, known as Life Re-Tights (or ReFilés in French), is backed by the European Union’s Life program and aims for a “closed-loop” cycle within three years.
At its core, the project uses a proprietary chemical separation process to disentangle nylon (polyamide) from elastane, a longstanding challenge in textile recycling. Machines designed for this effort can process up to 1.6 million pairs of tights per year.
In practice, Calzedonia will collect used tights — including those from other brands — via drop boxes in its stores. Logistics expert Asendia handles distribution to recycling partners. Golden Lady and Union Industries manage the separation and recovery phases, crafting new polyamide yarns that feed back into Calzedonia’s production through its vertically integrated arm, Ytres.
“We produce most of our garments, and especially the tights that we sell,” Oniverse Group head of sustainability Federico Fraboni, said in a statement. “We started the project because we are constantly looking to move toward a circular economy and to reduce the amount of waste.” Fraboni said the goal is “zero-waste on tights production in three years.”
The project is already in an early industrialization phase. Blind trials of recycled vs virgin tights reportedly found that testers could not reliably distinguish them. “Practically speaking, [testers] were not really able to tell which one was recycled. And that is exactly our goal,” Fraboni said. “The potential is very high in terms of satisfaction.”
A thorny technical obstacle has been distinguishing between nylon 6 and nylon 66, essential because they require separate recycling streams. To address this, Calzedonia partnered with a scanning-technology provider. The company estimates that roughly 85 percent of each pair of tights is nylon, which it can reintegrate into its own chain; the remaining 15 percent (elastane) is being developed for sale to other makers of synthetic goods such as faux leather.
The stakes are considerable. The European hosiery market shipped approximately 402 million pairs in 2024, worth about €5.5 billion in revenue. For Oniverse, tights represent its best-selling category, making them a potent entry point for circularity.
Calzedonia is not alone in advancing circular materials. In parallel, Swedish firm Circulose (formerly Renewcell) is pushing chemical recycling of cotton into regenerated fibers that replace virgin viscose.
Earlier this year, H&M Group inked a multi-year deal to substitute what it calls a “substantial share” of virgin viscose with Circulose’s fibers. Mango followed suit, announcing that it will integrate Circulose pulp into its supply chain—a move the brand described as “a milestone in its commitment to sustainable fashion.”
To simplify adoption for brands, Circulose launched Circulose Forward, a digital toolkit that includes a material library, pricing calculator, and supplier network. The platform is designed to streamline integration of next-generation recycled materials into mainstream supply chains. Jonatan Janmark, Circulose’s CEO, called the launch essential to scaling adoption. “Integration into brands’ supply chains seamless,” he said, “is key.”
Nevertheless, Circulose’s path has been turbulent. The company declared bankruptcy in February 2024 after struggling with scaling capacity and commercial traction. Under new ownership and leadership, it relaunched and is rebuilding partnerships.
The broader landscape of textile-to-textile recycling is heating up. A Reuters cover story earlier this year profiled Circulose, Reju, Syre, and other innovators striving to build industrial capacity in Europe. Underpinning the surge is new regulation: extended producer responsibility (EPR) rules in the EU will force brands to cover post-consumer costs and set minimum recycled content thresholds. As one industry participant told Vogue Business: “Over a two-year horizon, we will see a number of facilities opening at an industrial level.”
That legislation serves as a backdrop for Calzedonia’s push. By positioning itself not just as a brand but a circular textile provider, the group aims to help other labels manage material flows — and perhaps reduce reliance on external recycling systems.
Some caveats remain. The Life Re-Tights process is still in nascent deployment, and scaling up from pilot to mass adoption is always fraught with financial and technical risk. The ability to source sufficient volumes of waste tights and manage logistics is unproven. Market incentives, especially if EPR fees or incentives favor closed-loop systems, will be critical to viability.
In that light, the blind test results become a kind of manifesto: if consumers cannot detect recycled content, then circularity ceases to demand sacrifice. “Practically speaking, [testers] were not really able to tell which one was recycled,” Fraboni said, “and that is exactly our goal.”
With Life Re-Tights ramping in a sector previously regarded as unrecyclable, Calzedonia is betting that hosiery can be the proving ground for scalable textile circularity.
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