INTERVIEW #30 RECOVO
Founded in: 2021
Based in: Barcelona
Founded by: Mónica Rodriguez Corral & Marta Iglesias
Store: Online marketplace for business to business (B2B) that are shipping within EU and the UK.
Webbsite: https://www.recovo.co/
Price range: from 5€
Why we love them: A wonderful initiative to take care of dead stock and leftover fabrics and give them a purpose. It’s a great opportunity for brands out there who want to produce from new materials to actually use what’s already available. We hope to see many collaborations between brands and Recovo in the near future.
What is Recovo and why did you start?
Recovo is a B2B resale platform where clothing brands can buy and sell surplus fabrics from past collections. Thanks to technology and the power of the community we help brands develop circular economy strategies in the fashion Industry. Some fashion brands end up with left over fabrics after a garment production run. While other Fashion brands want to source existing materials to generate minimal impact with their collections. At Recovo we reduce textile waste by creating connections matching supply and demand. Our goal is to empower circularity in fashion brands in order to use existing resources and avoid the environmental impact of new textile productions.
Why did you started it?
I've always had an entrepreneurial spirit. I love to explore, ideate and create. I'm passionate about building a company from scratch. I think it is quite artistic in a way. You are giving your vision and energy to a project and then sharing it with the world. Improving the way things are done, solving problems. My first entrepreneurial experience was a native digital clothing brand. I sourced deadstock fabrics for my designs as many other emerging brands do.
I found it special because I had quality fabrics from other fashion houses and I was giving them a second life. Also I thought it gave a sense of exclusivity to my designs and to the buyers. Once it's gone, it's gone. On the other hand, Asking a textile manufacturer to produce fabrics for my designs was always a problem. Most of the time I could not afford those minimum order quantities. It limited my creativity since it made it hard to experiment with different materials. For example, maybe you had to stick to one same fabric and do different designs to use the entire roll. I bet this has happened to many brands reading this.
Who can shop from Recovo?
Our focus is B2B and the majority of active users in our platform are clothing brands but we also sell to individuals such us designers or fashion students. We are working closely with IED Madrid which is a fashion university and our project together is to encourage circularity since the beginning and to give the students access to sustainable materials.
Where do you source your products from?
We do not source. We are an intermediary creating connections between brands. Our seller brands are based in Europe. And the stock is located in Europe. At the moment we have sellers based in Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands. Recovo is an intermediary but also acts as a curator supervising the quality of the fabrics sold on the platform. We do not own the stocks. The sellers do and we create connections.
We make an effort of doing research and reaching out to potential brands and manufacturers of our interest. We are focused on having a high percentage of recycled, organic or natural fabrics in our catalogue but we are also interested in including high quality luxury materials, so we make an effort to reach potential sellers that work with fabrics with these characteristics. For example, some of our sellers are sustainable brands such as Ecoalf or Hemper, sustainable and innovative manufacturers such as Pyratex or luxury fashion houses such as Pronovias.
However we are a global community and we are open to all brands and designers to participate. It is possible to register on our platform and then a member of our product team will evaluate the seller's profile application. Some of our brands are buyer/seller meaning they sell left over fabrics from previous collections and they source new deadstock fabrics for their upcoming designs. There is a textile verification process where sellers fill in a file with all the technical details of the fabrics and send us a sample of each fabric they want to sell on Recovo.
This way we can evaluate the material and decide if it's suitable or not. The seller signs an agreement where they agree that the sample represents the total stock they have in their warehouse. This way we ensure that vendors send in their order quality materials that we have previously checked with the sample (quality fabrics in perfect conditions, no stains, no damages and on on).
Where does Recovo find inspiration?
We found inspiration in the recent growing resale platforms like Vinted or Vestiaire Collective, but also in 2good2go fighting food waste.
What is your sustainability profile?
Each of our products have impact and traceability information of the supply chain.
This way we are not only avoiding textile from landfill and incineration. We can actually calculate the impact of Recovo by the end of the year in the number of liters saved in water use, kg of CO2 emissions avoided by the total number of meters repurposed with other creator brands.
Sustainability to me means to think first before acting in terms of making informed and educated decisions, taking into account new alternatives and being open minded in terms of changing processes, tools and resources. You can do things better just by doing them a little differently. Having the mindset of producing better, consuming better and being aware of the resources you actually need to do something. To have access to data. Also the ability to extend the life of the materials you use in a creative way and avoid the throw away culture. And thirdly to believe in the power of community and technology to drive change.
What have been and are the major challenges?
Building the platform in order to adapt as much as possible to textile buyers and designers needs. It was a tough process at the beginning but we managed to launch in time. We are proud of the platform we built since we wanted it to be super intuitive and optimized so buyers could easily find the fabrics they wanted to source for their collections.
What has been the largest gain?
Being able to understand how far we can go. Interiorize and know our potential, strength, level of determination and will power.
What do you think needs to change in the fashion industry to make it more sustainable?
Education: there are new emerging circular economy models and sustainability platforms out there. Let's encourage bigger companies to learn about them and implement them in their strategy. Also education since the start of the learning process of a designer. Encourage designers to design sustainable since the very beginning of their careers
Make it accessible to smaller players working towards change by being supported with financing, education and resources.
We also think there are some common challenges brands face when implementing sustainability practices:
Access to a variety of sustainable materials and access to information regarding those materials.
That's why in our platform we offer the information of the environmental impact in terms of liters of water and emissions avoided by choosing to give that textile a second life. Also you can see on the product page information about the traceability of those textiles.
Since it is not so accessible it sometimes can limit designers creativity
Price because of the demand. We think the demand of sustainable materials is growing and once the demand increases enough the price will be more competitive to all, big and small brands.
