RegioGreenTex
Designing and building a matchmaking tool for textile surplus
As part of the European RegioGreenTex initiative, Quest took part in The Waste Wizard project.
Developing the blueprint for a Circular Garment
The fashion industry faces a systemic challenge: while circularity is widely discussed, few concrete examples show how to design and produce a truly circular garment in practice. Designers often lack access to circular materials, production systems remain linear, and collaboration between stakeholders is fragmented.
For The Circular Garment project, Quest set out to tackle this gap by turning the idea of circular fashion into a tangible, replicable reality. The challenge was to bring together multiple players across the value chain from different regions of the EU to co-create one garment that could serve as a blueprint for future circular production, proving that transparency, interregional collaboration, and innovation can transform how clothes are made and valued.
Strengthening textile circularity in Europe's regions
RegioGreenTex is a European initiative funded under the Interregional Innovation Investment (I3) Instrument, designed to accelerate the transition toward a circular and resilient textile ecosystem across Europe. Bringing together regional clusters, research centers, SMEs, and policy actors, the project aims to strengthen regional textile value chains by connecting waste holders, sorters, recyclers, and designers to turn textile waste into new resources. Within this framework, Quest contributed through projects like The Circular Garment, which demonstrate how collaboration, innovation, and design can make textile circularity both achievable and scalable.
Building a replicable Circular Garment
Our approach was rooted in systemic thinking and stakeholder engagement, recognizing that creating a circular garment requires collaboration across the entire “the value circle.” Rather than focusing on a single solution, we worked to connect the dots between strategy, design, and communication, ensuring that every decision from material selection to production and storytelling contributed to the same circular ambition. By facilitating co-creation and shared ownership, we transformed what could have been a linear design project into a collective learning journey, one that bridges innovation, transparency, and practical application.
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Set the ambition & scope
Define what “good” looks like: establish circularity goals, scope, and decision criteria such as durability, recyclability, repairability, and transparency.
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Align and coordinate partners through the value circle
Map all relevant stakeholders across the value circle by clarifying their roles, responsibilities, and interdependencies. Build trust, shared language, and a governance model that ensures each participant adds and retains value within the circle.
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Circular design sprint – Prototype, test, iterate
Our in-house circular fashion expert, Soraya, then translated principles into the garment, making intentional choices in pattern design, material selection, and construction techniques that enable reuse, repair, and recycling.
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Traceability & documentation
We documented every step of the process, from design decisions to production challenges, capturing learnings that feed into a scalable, transparent knowledge base.
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Communication outputs & turning insight into impact
We transformed the project’s outcomes into open knowledge through a public website, documentary, and white paper, ensuring that what began as one garment becomes a catalyst for industry-wide change.
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Turning circularity into practice
Our solution was to transform the complex process of creating a circular garment into a replicable blueprint — combining strategic coordination, circular design expertise, and transparent storytelling. By aligning stakeholders across the entire value circle, we turned fragmented efforts into a cohesive model that demonstrates how fashion can be designed, produced, and communicated within planetary boundaries. The result is not just one garment, but an open framework that others can use to accelerate their own transition toward circular fashion.
Our impact
Scaling circular fashion beyond the garment
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1Circular garment blueprint43Partners included in the project8Countries represented among the partners3Key communication deliverables: White Paper, Website, and Documentary
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The result From inter-regional collaboration to transformation
The result was more than a garment: it was a proof of concept for circular fashion in practice. Together with our partners, we created a fully circular piece that demonstrates how surplus textiles and post-consumer fabrics can be revalorized into new products without compromising on design or quality.
Beyond the physical prototype, the project delivered a comprehensive blueprint: a transparent roadmap, open-access resources, and real-life learnings captured through the website, documentary, and white paper. By bridging strategy, design, and communication, The Circular Garment now serves as a replicable model for brands, designers, and manufacturers eager to embed circularity at the heart of their work.
The result The Circular Garment Documentary
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