Torino Social Impact member Atelier Riforma has just started parthership with the sustainability retail park Green Pea, with a large innovation project on circular fashion.
Green Pea is located in Turin and is a unique place in Italy: it is a shopping center – with 5 floors and 15,000 m2 – dedicated to 360° sustainability, in particular in the sectors of mobility, energy, furniture, beauty, leisure and clothing.
The Green Pea building is built in a circular perspective, recovering wood from the forests destroyed by the 2018 Vaia storm and is painted with Airlite, the paint that eliminates pollutants. It is powered by renewable energy (photovoltaic panels, mini wind turbines and even piezoelectric floors that produce energy thanks to people walking) and includes more than 2000 plants inside and on the terraces.
Thanks to Atelier Riforma’s great experience and research on circular fashion, the startup was involved in an ambitious project: to create in Green Pea the first large physical hub in Italy dedicated to circular fashion: from second-hand and vintage, to creative upcycling, to the use of deadstock fabrics, to products obtained from textile recycling, etc. The startup’s involvement came through Green Pea’s new CEO, Marco Piarulli, who believed in this collaboration from the beginning.
“Circularity in fashion is made up of many aspects: from the production, putting used colthes back into circulation, using recycled and deadstock textiles, upcycling discarded garments through tailoring; but it also involves educating consumers to take care of their garments and extend their life (repair, “homemade” upcycling); and goes as far as the responsible management of clothing at the end of their lifespan, directing them towards circular processes and “closing the loop” and avoiding waste. Our innovation project in Green Pea will concern all these aspects!” – Elena Ferrero, CEO of Atelier Riforma
The startup also aims to make Green Pea’s fashion department an aggregator of virtuous practices and a physical showcase for all those brands that believe in responsible and circular fashion and do not exploit natural resources, but know – with competence and creativity – how to valorize “waste” as a resource.
We will start to see the fruits of this partnership in the next few days. For November 24-25-26, in fact, Green Pea has organized the “Circular Days“, a three-day festival dedicated to the circular economy, as an alternative to the classic compulsive buying of Black Friday. Atelier Riforma – together with the many other entities that collaborate with Green Pea – also organized many activities for this event, from a swap party, to talks, to upcycling workshops, to a practical display of how Re4Circular works, to a ” circular market” with second-hand and upcycling brands.
“We have lots of ideas in store for this project and we will reveal them in the coming months! We are truly honored by this opportunity, which will allow us to put to good use all the skills we have gained over the years in the field of circularity applied to the fashion sector.” – Elena Ferrero, CEO of Atelier Riforma