CLOTHING INDUSTRY

Fields of the Invention

[01 ] This invention belongs to the technological sector of clothing industry and refers specifically to a process of reuse for products originating from the textile and clothing industry, wherein an online platform and a circular cycling steps provide the new clothing collections for rent and reuse. These re-styling steps were necessaries when clothes are re-designed in order to create a new product and avoid the improper disposal of a waste product.

Background of the invention

[02] During the 1900, the sewing machine became relatively a standard in the field of the clothing industry and other technical fields, contributing to the development to the first fashion factory. In the 1940s, during the Second World War, the women started to enter in the market, appearing a new purchase power. Synthetic materials such as polyvinyl chloride, polyester, also were considered to the mainstream in the 60s, revolutionizing the textile industry, since the appearance of fashion companies. Therefore, in the period of 1970 to 1980 the fashion seasonal model was introduced in this field and the collections concept was created. In this way, the Spring-Summer and Fall-Winter trends were created (Article: "Uma breve histoha da evolugao da moda ate o fast-fashion", por Stylo Urbano, 2015).

[03] Therefore, in accordance with the traditional model, the fashion production's was divided in these two collections in the year and, over the years, this model has been replaced by other system: the fast-fashion system, in which were produced several mini-collections along each year, comprising shorter working life for fashion products and also smaller stocks.

[04] In this way, with the appearance of this concept in the late 1990s, the updating of fashion products became increasingly fast in large retail chains, and resulted in the adhesion of several department stores, popularizing this model worldwide. It should be noted that this concept does not only apply to large corporations and consists of a competitive differential for small and medium-sized companies. In this way, as companies realize that consumers have learned to wait for product sales, fast-fashion has represented an excellent retail model solution as it involves the consumer himself in product design.

[05] The manufacture of a product directly produced to please the consumer is usually possible from the so-called "trend hunters" who carry out a more qualitative research with consumers to understand the desired product and offer a quick response of that the consumer wants. Thus, the brands take advantage of what the consumer has the best, not through the purchasing power, but through the knowledge of the market and the style that each one has.

[06] Therefore, the great merit of a true fast-fashion is to empower its customers, as they guide companies to produce new parts based on the supply and demand of the products. These pieces are developed according to the desires of the market, different from the collections that already offer an entire collection ready each season.

[07] The spiral of negative impacts on the environment and ecosystem cannot continue. To talk in figures, some studies have shown that we are moving towards 2/3 of the population having water shortages in 2025. The goal of the invention (technical and conceptual process described in this work) is to create a new model for the fashion industry, re-imagining the value proposition (to have more access, to own less) and the supply chain (less linear and more circular, re-engineered with the support of technology).

[08] The fast-fashion industry's wide reach can be observed with the high monetary income from the companies currently using this system, which the two major fast-fashion companies earned 42.63 billion dollars in 2015, holding 60% of the market share in developed countries. Although there is still a lot of room left for them to monopolize the world market (they are hardly present in the southern hemisphere), we can infer that they "dress" a large part of the population in the Northern Hemisphere. [09] In parallel, fast-fashion promotes accelerated consumption, launching 52 micro-collections a year. An analysis conducted by Barnardos (UK) showed that a consumer wears a garment an average of seven (7) times before leaving it aside. The 33% of the consumers themselves consider a garment "old" after using it three (3) times, and these consumers have at least an average of ten (10) garments in their wardrobe, which will be thrown away.

[010] The fast-fashion process pressures the supply chain using more energy, more fibers and textiles (and consequently significant amounts of fossil fuel, chemicals, and water). Nowadays, the fashion industry is recognized as responsible for 10% of total carbon emissions impacting global warming and endangering the population and the access to housing, food and water.

[01 1 ] On 2014, 10.5 millions of tons of clothing were discarded in the fields. These tissues do not decompose generating pollution and significantly contributing to global warming. Fashion industry was recognized to be the second most polluting industry. The current supply chain makes great use of water (resource in scarcity), chemicals, consumes a lot of energy (for increased production and logistics), produces great amounts of CO2 emissions and is weakened by the working conditions of the labor force.

[012] New clothing consumption systems (shared economy, second-hand market, local production, hand-made production, eco-fabric fashion and "do it yourself") are emerging in response to a possible deceleration of fast-fashion offer. It is possible to mention some initiatives to reuse waste or products no longer used in a new product, also called upcycling, as in the case of Kallio Nyc, Sword and Plow, The Reformation, TRMTAB, Looptworks, Seamly, Etsy, etc.

[013] These initiatives are quite interesting but do not have a large-scale automated production and do not address a large critical mass of people (more than one billion people) who currently represent the consumer of fast-fashion clothing. Additionally, in these cases, the purchase and sale are integral parts of the solutions, not comprising an alternative of product sharing.

[014] Some other alternatives have been developed as in the case of shared economy platforms that provide the rental of clothing manufactured in the fast- fashion molds, involving distant sourcing for cost gains or industrial production in a nearby locality, but with a large margin of obsolescence. In this case, the life cycle of these products usually ends in an outlet market. On the other hand, there are emerging brands emerging and capitalizing on the textile constitution, working with organic/ecological fabrics or in the fairtrade manufacturing process. However, in neither case is a process and/or reuse system developed of garment parts from an automated and circular model on a large scale.

[015] As already said, a fast-fashion consumer wears her garment seven (7) times on average before leaving it aside, contributing to the increase of trash and pollution in our planet. Furthermore, we are referring to an industry that generates negative environmental impacts and to a situation that needs urgent action.

[016] With this in mind, due to all the inconveniences that exist mainly concerning the absence of a manufacturing process and reuse of automated clothing, there is a gap in the creation of a process that largely solves the negative impacts on the environment and the ecosystem generated by the inappropriate disposal of garments. Thus, the object of the present invention is to develop a new process to be implemented by the fashion industry, re-imagining the less linear value proposition (more access, less ownership) and the supply chain. More circular, reengineered with technology support.

Summary of the invention

[017] In order to optimize the shortcomings of the current state of the art highlighted above, the present invention aims to propose a solution to the main problem involving the large volume of clothing and/or waste generated by the fast- fashion industry, which are inappropriately discarded and become a serious environmental problem. As stated earlier, on average, a fast-fashion consumer dresses his or her garment seven times before leaving it, contributing to the increase in litter, waste and pollution on our planet. Thus, we are facing an industry that has significant negative impacts on our environment and a framework that calls for urgent action. [018] The present invention aims to improve the processes related to the clothing sector from a process and system of automation of the entire supply chain and reutilization of raw materials and products originating from the textile industry, mainly solving the inconveniences and harmful impacts to the environment caused by the fast-fashion industry. The process proposed provides an online and eco- friendly fashion platform, making clothing collections available for rent and enabling high-scale production, involving low consumer, access costs and slowing down the industry's contribution as a pollution agent.

[019] The solution comprises the creation and distribution of clothing successively from automated steps using algorithms that determine the best style for the part to be reused so as to make the most of the amount and type of fabric and/or material of the fabric it. Thus, the clothing after a predetermined time of sale of the product, is returned by the consumer and sent back to the automated production line in a re-styling phase to create a new product, which new can be also be returned, or later on, forwarded for the production of children's clothing or accessories. In the end, when the material is not appropriated to propose new clothes, it can be directed towards composing thermal or acoustic product parts in other kind of industries.

[020] Therefore, the initiative will be dematerializing the supply chain of the textile industry, automating both the manufacturing process of clothing and strategy for its subsequent reuse in a fully digitized process. Thus, the new system proposed for the fashion industry comprises a re-imagination of the value proposition, giving the consumer greater access to the product and less ownership, the supply chain being less linear with an economic model of "extracting, transforming , discard, "as it currently does. In addition, the process proposed here is circular, reengineered with technology support, causing the same product, which would be discarded, to be reused for a new commercialization, increasing the life cycle of the raw material.

[021 ] The invention tends to revolutionize the business within the fashion industry by utilizing the principle of circular, regenerative and restorative economy by principle in order to maintain products, components and materials at their highest level of utility and value. Thus, the present invention involves the creation of a process supported by an e-platform for renting clothes with an ecological supply chain. The proposed circular process is characterized by the local automated production, made by 3D printers and robots used as a sewing machine.

[022] The result of the product life cycle extension is optimized by the advanced analytics solution space which recommends re-styling each part, and at the end of the cycle the parts will be diverted to other streams constituting new products in other categories. These new operations will enable on-demand production, streamlined investment of resources (energy, inputs, capital and human) and rapid and flexible scalability.

Brief description of the drawings

[023] In order to the present invention be fully understood and put into practice by any technician in this area of technology, it will be described in a clear, concise and sufficient way, based on the accompanying drawings listed below:

[024] Figure 1 represents the block diagram illustrating the process steps for reuse products originating from the textile and clothing industry, according to the present invention.

[025] Figure 2 represents a second example of the block diagram illustrating the process steps for reuse products originating from the textile and clothing industry, according to the present invention.

[026] Figure 3 represents, in detail, the process steps of product developing and/or collection developing, according to the present invention.

[027] Figure 4 represents, in detail, the process steps of production, according to the present invention.

[028] Figure 5 represents, in detail, the process steps of processing of raw material, according to the present invention.

[029] Figure 6 represents, in detail, the process steps of distribution, according to the present invention.

Detailed Description of the several embodiments [030] The technology involved in the process of reusing products from the textile industry allows a high scale of production and operation, resulting in products with low access costs for the consumer. The process implementation, the objectives of this patent application becomes a concrete alternative for the successive development of new collections from the reuse of garments. In this way, the present application allows a deceleration of the contribution of the fashion industry as a pollution agent and negative impact for the environment.

[031 ] To this end, the process primarily comprises the development of clothing collections that are presented for rental in e-commerce through an online platform. As described below, the developed process comprises key stages of creation and distribution of the product to be marketed, using automated steps and having a tool for analysis of purchased products and user/client body scanning via smartphone to ensure the correct modeling and assertiveness of products, made as close as possible to population measures and used to create a consumer profile.

[032] The customer returns the leased product to the company so that it is forwarded to the product development stage and can be re-marketed. The production is carried out by 3D printers and when necessary, complemented with sewing automatic operations, with robots for example. This automation ensures the "local" production and with optimal quality indices, both of the result and efficiency, as well as in quality of workmanship.

[033] Specific algorithms are responsible for the re-styling phase, indicating the best style for the new part, in such a way that it is desirable and able to make the most of the quantity and type of fabric and/or material, allowing the initiation of a new rent cycle successively until the moment when the development team deems it necessary to pass the piece to the production line of children's clothing or accessories. After this last line of production the product will be directed to compose thermal products or acoustic parts in other branches of industries, thus destining the material to a purpose other end in order to avoid it discards in the environment. [034] Therefore, the process of reusing products from the fashion industry, proposed in the present invention, starts from the development of a strategy of new fashion trends. From this, a stage is foreseen that consists of the development of the product/collection to be commercialized, going to the stage of production and distribution of the same until reaching the end customer. All of the steps above consist in the traditional way of producing a new collection. The innovation proposed here foresees innovative steps from the use by the consumer. That is, after the use the product is returned to the company by the customer and re-routed to a product/collection development stage to be restyled and resold, resulting in a new product. The recycling system will be responsible for green dry-cleaning the garments for the new use, new lifecycle. Thus, after developing a new esthetic characteristic from the garment, new stages of production, distribution and destination to the consumer are assigned to the process, maintaining a cycle of steps. This cycle of steps can be performed several times until the raw material is considered unfit to continue serving the same target. Since the material is no more appropriated to new clothes, it is directed to the development of product/collection to attend the children's audience and new accessories. Finally, since the materials have their useful life depleted, a new stage of transformation of this raw material is proposed, so that it is destined to other industries. This final step is fundamental, since it ends the life cycle of an article of clothing and/or destinating the material to a purpose other use to avoid the destination to the environment. The invention also proposes a research on raw materials for fabrics that could be 3-D printable and biodegradable

[035] For example, as represented in figure 1 , were proposed the initial and traditional steps of strategy, product development, production, distribution and destination to the final consumer. Then, the present process defines that the consumer shall send back the clothes unused to the company for a transformation and subsequent reuse. This example proposed the use of new steps of product development, production, distribution and destination to the final consumer, in order to create a new clothing style. This new model shall be directed at the same target groups. Therefore, after the new user of this piece of clothing send it back again to the company for a new transformation/destination, new steps of product development, production, distribution and destination to the final consumer will be applied to create another clothing items. For example, the clothes could be turned into a children's clothing or accessories. These steps and cycling procedures can be performed several times until the raw material is considered unfit transform into other clothes. Once the materials are not available to create a clothing item, the present invention proposes the reuse of this material, in order to destination for the residues to another kind of industry. The figure 2, illustrates another example of the mentioned process. This example removes the second step of transform the clothes to the same target group and proposes only the clothes' transformation into a children's clothing or accessories.

[036] As seen in Figure 3, the secondary product development comprises the use of advanced algorithm analysis and Big Data to recommend the next style for the garment that is returned from the customer. That is, an analysis is performed with monitoring and cross-referencing of the population morphologies contained in a database. This characteristic information is obtained through the body scan tool. That is, said technical analysis of the parts and other characteristics of the new parts to be created occurs through the monitoring and cross-referencing of the population morphologies with a body scan tool. From this analysis is created the design of a new technical sheet sent to the unit of production of new garments. In this case, the production of the part is carried out according to the characteristics contained in the data sheet. Subsequently, once produced, the clothes are photographed and then cataloged in the e-commerce, starting a new rental cycle. In this step the resources used consist of the tool of body scan, as already mentioned and monitoring tool of competing e-commerce's. Thus, from the information obtained, a cross-check of the same is performed with the performance of the items marketed by the brand itself, being analyzed by scientists data analyzes concerning the parts in circulation and reproduction.

[037] Figure 4 shows the subprocess of production, which begins with the receipt of the technical file in the production hub, which contains the characteristics and particularities that the clothing must contain to be included again in the garment recirculation system. Thus, once the desired characteristics of the new cloth are identified, in a second step the piece is destined for the manufacturing step through 3D printers and, optionally, the panels can be sewed with robot machines. 3D printers must be able to produce the decorative patterns and/or articles chosen by the user from the selected raw materials, which are compatible with the technology of those machines; such as polymer materials and ceramic materials, also any fabrics that could be 3D printable and recycled on the system.. That is, once the designs of the new garments are defined, the articles chosen are printed on these machines. After printing and assembling the clothing pieces, the quality control step of the finish the piece takes place, in which all changes made to the garment are analyzed. That is, by means of an automatic and/or manual step, the seams, collages and applications of materials, in general, should be analyzed in order to certify the high quality of the product. If this part is within the established standard, it is send to the consumer or to the product inventory and/or pop-up store sector, and if it is out of order, the part returns to the initial stages of product development. Once the part is approved in quality control, it is designed to be destined to the consumer and this can be done through a transport agency or even the company's own transportation.

[038] At the moment in which the user receives the product, the cycle of that garment in the process proposed herein shall only return when it is directed to the company for reuse. Figure 5 shows in detail the sub-steps generated after the part is received in the processing cell of the company performing the part restyling. In this case, an analysis is carried out in order to determine the best way to reuse the input taking into account the criteria of proximity with the biodegradable, cost and longevity of the next piece that will be made from that input. Thus, a step of recovering the analysis is proposed to determine the characteristics that will be used in the piece, in order to reuse it. New means of checking must be adopted in order to verify and identify the physical and structural conditions of the part, preferably through scanners. That is, in this step are used Custom Big Data tools and automated machines and/or robots for input processing. Therefore, the characteristics of the part, such as bacterial determination and, consequently, the type of hygiene required, integrity of the yarn structures, general size and dimensions of the part, compatibility of the material with new raw materials to be tested are determined. Once all the parameters are determined, the cloth piece is send to a processing station and from that a new piece is produced.

[039] Figure 6 shows in detail the distribution subprocess of the parts, which consists of the consumer relationship stages. In this case, the production of the clothes chosen by the consumer in the e-commerce is carried out. An additional stage of quality control, with the verification of the technical characteristics that determine the quality of the product to be distributed. Thus, the product is then packed and shipped to the customer or the pop-up store. Strategies for customer relationships can be adopted at this stage.

[040] It is important to note that the figures and description made do not have the power to limit the execution of the inventive concept proposed here, but to illustrate and make understandable the conceptual innovations revealed in this solution. Thus, the descriptions and images are to be interpreted in an illustrative and non-limiting manner, and there may be other equivalent or analogous ways of implementing the inventive concept herein disclosed and which do not escape the protection spectrum outlined in the proposed solution.

[041 ] This report describes an improvement on the process of reusing products from the textile industry with novelty, inventive step, descriptive sufficiency, industrial application and, consequently, all essential requirements for the concession of the present invention.