100% Recycled PET, and What That Actually Means
Made from recycled plastic" is on half the labels in the industry right now. Here's what we mean when we say it — and why we picked one material and stayed with it.
Recycled PET is the most talked-about, least understood material in fashion right now. Almost every brand claims some version of it, at some percentage, in some part of their collection. The word "recycled" has been stretched so thin it barely holds.
At IMPARI we work with one material — 100% recycled PET — across every piece we make. That number matters because it is not "up to 100%" or "at least 30%". It is the whole garment. When you hold an IMPARI piece, you are holding fabric that used to be discarded plastic waste, mechanically or chemically broken down, spun into yarn, and woven into something with drape and weight and structure.
We chose PET for three reasons. It is abundant — there is enough post-consumer plastic in the world to feed the entire textile industry many times over. It is durable — a well-made PET garment outlives most cottons. And it is a closed loop we can actually complete: PET can be reprocessed again at end-of-life, if we design the piece to allow it.
That last part is the work most brands skip. Designing for circularity means avoiding blends that can't be separated, avoiding glues where stitches would do, and choosing trims that don't contaminate the fabric when the piece is recycled. We build for that from the pattern up.
One material. Every piece. Repeatable. That is what we mean.
