Circular Fashion Summit (CFS), the world’s largest annual VR gathering in fashion, was created to accelerate the actions and transition towards the digitized circular economy of the industry, and inspire innovation, creating positive change through design, technology, and sustainability. To support and inspire this necessary innovation, Circular Fashion Summit runs its innovation Hub program each year at the CFS Summit (happening this year from 9—12 December), calling for next-generation innovative solutions, from innovative materials, design process, manufacturing, retail to end-to-end transparency and traceability—all of which can accelerate fashion transformation towards digitized circularity and sustainability.

This year, Innovation Hub is supported by ACBC, the sustainable sneaker manufacturer based in Italy. Its ten innovators—from corporates to startups—will join the summit in a curated showcase of international cross-industry solutions. Since CFS is aware that change comes from having the means to experiment, the program highlights innovators who are experimenting with new ways to design, produce, communicate and sell. The program encourages collective action and collaborations, connecting innovators with the designers of the future (this year’s ten Impact Design Hub honorees) to create measurable and scalable change.

A new addition to this year’s summit’s edition is the CFS Gallery, an exclusive interactive showcase area of 4 CFS corporate innovation partners, including Vogue Singapore, ISKO, Comfort by Unilever, and Kering Group (who is presenting the Kering Materials Innovation Lab, together with Fashion For Good), will be showcasing 10 additional innovators and startups, to unite and join the 12 months program to reach the CFS goals collectively.

At these virtual booths of Innovation Hub and CFS Gallery, all attendees will have 2 times slots everyday from 10—12 December during the summit, to visit and meet innovators “in person” (with avatars) from 9:00-11:00 CET and 16:00-18:00 CET at “CFS Hubs” and “CFS Gallery” area, to explore and learn more about the ideas and story behind the innovation.

Innovation in New Materials Highlights: Spinnova, AltMat, Evolved by Nature, Material Experience Center (MEC)

Alternative materials market is set to become a $2.2 billion industry by 2026. While creating a more sustainable fashion industry requires the end of fast-consumption as we know it, it will also open the door to new opportunities in other spaces.


New materials innovation is this year’s great focus, with 4 honorees out of ten in this space. This includes innovators in materials like Finnish sustainable material company Spinnova (which is inspired by how spiders weave their webs and uses cellulose to create a textile fabric that can be as warm as wool), alternative materials company AltMat (creating Alt Yarns, Alt Fibers, and Alt Fabrics and the winner of Beyond Form x CFS Innovation Award 2021), green chemistry company Evolved by Nature (which creates Activated Silk Technology), and Material Experience Center (MEC) (a combined creative forces by Santoni Shanghai and designers Eva x Carola).

Innovation in Manufacturing and Traceability Highlights: EOS, Coloreel, FibreTrace

This year will also highlight innovation in manufacturing including 3D printing technology EOS, and Coloreel, a Swedish textile innovation brand with a ground-breaking more sustainable technology for embroidery that enables high-quality coloring of textile thread on demand, unlocking a world of potential.


“The next generation of products needs to incorporate human health and nature positivity as absolute benchmarks,” says founder of Evolved by Nature, Dr. Gregory Altman and Dr. Rebecca Lacouture.
“Circularity is a necessary system to get us there, but it's a hollow goal unless it encompasses a hard look at the toxicity of all additives and chemical systems used to make a product, and the human and environmental impacts of a product's full life cycle as a result of those chemicals.”


It will also celebrate innovation in traceability and transparency by featuring transparency technology business FibreTrace. “Sustainability is everyone’s sons and daughters. It’s the future we promised them and forgot to keep along the way to creating the advanced world they are going to live in. Sustainability is the fuel for my innovation because it’s become a personal responsibility,” says Sanjeev Bahl, co-founder of FibreTrace.

Innovation in Design Process Highlights: DressX, Thrill Digital, Spacegrey  

Last but not least, digital fashion and upcycling design are definitely two of the most popular topics of the year. Innovators such as DressX (digital fashion marketplace) and Thrill Digital who gamifies digital fashion, will be showcased at Innovation Hub. Spacegrey, collective of human-centric creative minds building the metaverse worlds of the Culture, Design, Luxury and Fashion industries. DressX will also provide a selection of digital garments available for CFS 2021 attendees to dress their avatars.

Through amplifying industry leaders across all areas of innovation, Circular Fashion Summit will showcase the sustainable future possible for the fashion industry and ignite cross-industry pilot programs connecting talented impact designers and innovators. All innovators will take part in pilot projects over the course of 12-months (starting January 2022) to create fully traceable and circular products together through IoT technology by lablaco with the designers from the Impact Design Hub, putting these future possibilities into actionable change towards a digitized circular economy for fashion.

CFS Gallery Highlights: Kering, ISKO, and Comfort by Unilever take the lead in the circular fashion transformation, partnering with CFS by lablaco as Corporate Innovation Partners 

After announcing the new “circularity ambition”, Kering has joined the world’s first virtual-reality fashion summit, Circular Fashion Summit 2021, as Corporate Innovation Partner, showcasing the group’s continued commitment to sustainability and innovation. As part of this year’s Innovation Hub, the global luxury group will feature a selection of startups working on new circular and sustainable materials from their in-house startup incubator, to pilot and bring them to market by committing to CFS goal n2 - empowering the Impact Design Hub Honorees 2021, by providing materials to create next generation, connected (IoT) and digitized circular products powered by lablaco’s blockchain based circular retail technologies.


French luxury group Kering will also be showing selected innovative material and ingredient manufacturing related companies like MATERRA, Colorifix, Nature Coatings, Smartex.ai (which uses artificial intelligence, machine learning and computer vision technologies to reduce textile waste by detecting all visible defects inside circular knitting machines), and textile-to-textile recycling company Renewcell; and fashion-tech startups in collaborations with Fashion For Good: unspun, AnamXR, The Fabricant, Natural Fiber Welding and Bioglitz in a customized virtual gallery. The emerging changemaker brands range from creating climate-resilient cotton agriculture to textile-to-textile recycling.

“Kering is aiming at driving change within the fashion industry through innovation, and part of our sustainability roadmap is focused on this challenge. As we are thriving to innovate in a 360° approach, we have launched our ‘Circularity Ambition’ earlier this year, with the ambition to transform our business model deeply.”  said Marie-Claire Daveu, Kering Chief Sustainability and Institutional Affairs Officer. “Collaborating with groundbreaking new initiatives, such as the Circular Fashion Summit, helps us to share our best practices as well as spark our imagination and inspire us in the long run, reaching our 2025 target” she added.

Other CFS Galleries featuring CFS 2021 Corporate Innovation Partners are ISKO, the leading denim ingredient brand, Unity, the leading game engine platform, and Comfort by Unilever.

“ISKO is proud to be partnering with lablaco for the Circular Fashion Summit, taking place in virtual reality at the Grand Palais during Paris Fashion Week, December 9-12, 2021.” explained Fatih Konukoğlu, ISKO CEO.
“This groundbreaking event is aiming to accelerate the transition to a circular economy through digitization and technological advancement. At ISKO, we are strongly aligned with this vision: continuously innovating and improving our processes to help build a more transparent and connected industry. Investing in revolutionary technologies that can fully separate and recycle cotton and polyester blends at scale as well as partnering with advanced research labs and institutes that are pushing the boundaries of what is possible.”

Vogue Singapore joins forces with Circular Fashion Summit as official Media Partner

In celebration of the first year anniversary, Vogue Singapore partners with Circular Fashion Summit to continue affirming its position as the international media that is leading Fashion Metaverse. During the summit, on 10th December, at 13:00 (any local time where attendees are), Vogue Singapore will host an Innovation Workshop - Fashion’s New Frontier: The Metaverse by its Editor-in-Chief, Norman Tan, and will showcase the 12 NFT digital covers of its first year at CFS Gallery area. 

The Vogue Singapore gallery will also showcase an exclusive digital fashion piece, made in collaboration with designer Angel Chen. The garment will be wearable in the SPIN metaverse platform in virtual reality, where Circular Fashion Summit is operated, to be worn on the avatars for a full VR social experience, available for all attendees to meet the team from 10-12 December at 9:00-11:00 CET and 16:00-18:00 CET.

This special Media Collaboration will be to follow and support the 12 months journey of the CFS goals, with exclusive access and insights to the CFS hubs, where avant garde designers and innovators unite to accelerate the transition of the fashion industry to a digitized and connected circular economy.