At Ecoalf, Designing for the Future of Circular Fashion

Over the last 15 years, Spanish-based Ecoalf has positioned itself as one of the world’s leading sustainability-first brands, with a business model and product offering driven by material innovation, circularity and a disciplined approach to impact.

Founded in 2009 by Javier Goyeneche, the brand began with a simple proposition: to stop using our natural resources in a careless way. It set out to create a new generation of recycled products with the same quality and design as the best non-recycled products — made from discarded fishing nets and post-consumer plastics to used tyres and ocean debris.

What started as a mission-driven concept has evolved into a global label selling in more than 50 countries, receiving recognition for its uncompromising commitment to product performance and environmental integrity. The brand achieved B-Corp status in 2018 — the first Spanish fashion brand to do so — and in 2022, it entered the top 5 percent of the 5,000 B-Corps in the environment category.

“We try to tackle three things,” said Goyeneche on stage at BoF VOICES 2025. “Taking away the waste; not putting more waste in the system; and whatever we do put in the system, making sure it can be recycled at the end of its lifecycle.”

Ecoalf’s innovation engine sits at the heart of its growth. While many brands have focused on incremental improvements to existing materials, Ecoalf has invested heavily in technologies, from recycled nylon and polyester to its Ocean Yarn — fibres developed from waste collected through the Ecoalf Foundation’s “Upcycling the Oceans” project. To date, Ecoalf has recovered over 2000 tonnes of waste from the bottom of the ocean.

The brand has also maintained full visibility over its supply chain. Its ecosystem of partners spans from specialist recyclers in Spain and Italy to responsible manufacturing hubs across Portugal, Vietnam and Thailand — each contributing craft and expertise to garments that are designed to last and to be recycled at the end of their lifecycle.

For the brand’s last collection, Goyeneche shared on stage that 72 percent of garments were made with mono-material fabrics — those made from a single type of material rather than mixed materials, making them easier and more efficient to recycle. In this season’s collection, Ecoalf has increased the use of mono-material to 78 percent.

The brand’s ethos aligns with the consumer shifts highlighted in The State of Fashion 2026, produced by The Business of Fashion and McKinsey & Co., with a marked turn towards quality, longevity and circularity — a move away from the relentless churn of fast-fashion. As value consciousness continues to reshape spending habits, consumers are prioritising products that offer meaning, durability and versatility over more fleeting trends.

With physical retail also re-emerging as a critical touchpoint for consumers in 2026, capturing customer imagination in a sea of activations and in-store events will require brand-relevant, values-driven differentiation for a sense of community.

Ecoalf’s stores — from Madrid and Barcelona to Biarritz, Milan, Bolzano, San Sebastián and Tokyo — function as both retail spaces and educational environments. Offering a blend of digital convenience and tactile engagement, the retail spaces immerse consumers in the brand’s material science, impact metrics and community-driven initiatives.

Today, Ecoalf is focused on expanding its platform of circular materials, accelerating the scale of its Foundation’s clean-up programmes and collaborating with partners across fashion, outdoor and hospitality. These initiatives are designed not only to drive commercial growth, but to reinforce the brand’s core premise — that sustainability and design-forward fashion are not mutually exclusive, but mutually reinforcing.

BoF sits down with Goyeneche to discuss the future of circular fashion, the economics of material innovation and the opportunities that lie ahead for mission-driven brands in a rapidly maturing market.

How has the perception of sustainability changed in fashion since you started in 2009?

When we started, sustainability was very different to what it is today — at least in Spain. Often, it was associated with poor design, lower quality and a kind of “hippie” aesthetic. Recycled materials were seen as something you just wouldn’t want to wear.

It was also difficult to explain why recycled products weren’t cheaper. People assumed that because something was recycled, it should cost less. But the reality was that all the innovation, research and processes behind recycled materials were — and still are — very expensive.

Today, sustainability is much more closely linked to design, quality and innovation. That shift has been crucial. It has allowed brands like ours to exist in the mainstream, rather than on the margins.

The 2026 edition of The State of Fashion report points to a consumer shift towards quality, durability and longevity. How does that align with Ecoalf’s product strategy?

From the beginning, we have believed that quality and durability are fundamental to sustainability. The most sustainable product is probably the one you inherit — the one with the longest life cycle.

That’s why we focus so strongly on quality and timeless design — making products that improve with age. Durability and aesthetics go hand in hand. If something is well designed and lasts a long time, naturally, it becomes more sustainable.

Unfortunately, the fashion industry has operated for too long on a model of buying and throwing away — with constant promotions, weekly discounts and peak retail days like Black Friday It has been much more about quantity than quality. That model is directly connected to the massive volumes of clothing ending up in landfill or exported to places like Ghana every week.

Ecoalf has grown steadily over the years while expanding into new markets and categories. How do you scale without diluting your brand mission?

Growth has to make sense. Ecoalf has grown consistently — around 18 to 20 percent year after year — but it hasn’t exploded overnight, and that is intentional.

Our vision is clear: to stop using natural resources in a careless way. Our mission is to create a new generation of recycled products that look and feel like any other high quality fashion item — where you wouldn’t even know they are recycled.

As long as we stay loyal to that vision, scaling doesn’t dilute the mission. It doesn’t matter whether we’re making jackets, shirts, trousers or skirts — what matters is that we don’t compromise on how those products are made.

For us, sustainability is not just about using a specific fabric. It’s about not overproducing, avoiding constant promotions and rethinking the entire system — even when that makes our business more complicated.

How do Ecoalf’s physical retail spaces contribute to building trust and transparency with your consumers?

Retail allows us to control the narrative. Today, a much larger share of our business is direct-to-consumer — through our own stores and online — compared to when we started.

When you sell through wholesale, you lose control of the message. Consumers might see us campaigning against Black Friday, but then find Ecoalf products discounted elsewhere online. Once the product belongs to a retailer, it is out of your hands. That’s why, for us, it’s important to build solid partnerships with retailers that understand and support our DNA.

In turn, having our own retail spaces allows us to explain our values clearly — why we price the way we do, why we don’t participate in constant discounting, and what our materials actually mean. That transparency is essential for building trust.

Ecoalf has invested heavily in proprietary materials such as Ocean Yarn. What does it take to innovate at the fibre level?

Innovation at the fibre level takes an enormous amount of time and resources. The “Upcycling the Oceans” project is a great example. It started 10 years ago and today, we work with nearly 5,000 fishermen across more than 80 ports in the Mediterranean, and have recovered over 2000 tonnes of marine waste.

You can’t build those relationships through emails or Whatsapp — you have to go to the ports, sit with people and explain why it matters. In France, it took us three years just to open our first port.

Beyond that, there is continuous investment in research and development. We are always working to improve our fabrics, to make them more durable, more recyclable and lower impact. That investment never stops.

Ecoalf is expanding into new product categories, including denim. Why was now the right moment to enter that market?

Denim is one of the most challenging categories, if you take sustainability seriously. It’s also one of the most polluting segments in fashion. So, from our perspective, it was important to address it — but only if we could do it properly.

For us, entering denim wasn’t about following a trend or expanding for the sake of growth. It was about applying our principles to a category where those principles are usually compromised.

How does your approach to denim differ from what’s typically available in the market?

Circularity only works if it’s considered from the start. That’s why more than 70 percent of our collection is mono-material. Most denim on the market uses blended fibres — particularly elastane — which immediately makes recycling impossible at the end of life.

We made the decision to work without elastane and focus on mono-material denim, to get a soft, natural stretch. To achieve this, we used a special type of weft.

Everyone talks about circularity, but very few products are actually designed to be circular.

Of course, it wasn’t the easiest choice. It took over 5 years of research and development, lots of trial and error, but, if we start mixing fibres — we know, from the beginning, that garment will never be circular.

These are difficult decisions, but we didn’t want to release yet another denim line. We wanted to create one that would truly change the current industry standards and what is really considered “sustainable”.

How do you choose your recycling and manufacturing partners across different regions?

We started investing in recycling in 2009, so many of our partners have been with us for more than 15 years. That’s something that we are very proud of — we’ve grown together, experimenting with recycled content over time, starting at 10 percent until we have now reached 100 percent recycled content in some materials.

We don’t move quickly when it comes to factories. Auditing a new partner can take nearly a year. We only work with suppliers when we believe the relationship will be long-term. That makes us less flexible in some ways, but it ensures consistency, quality and shared values.

Looking ahead, what do you think the next phase of conscious consumption needs to address?

We measure everything — water use, emissions, materials — and what worries me is that, despite all the talk about sustainability, we, as a society, are still using too many natural resources and sending too many garments to landfill.

Most of these garments are low quality, non-mono-material and impossible to recycle. Everyone talks about circularity, but very few products are actually designed to be circular.

This is not only the responsibility of brands — consumers also need to understand that the way we consume today is not sustainable. We cannot keep cutting down forests to grow cotton for €2 shirts that end up in landfill within two years.

People need to understand what they are buying and the impact that every purchase has on the planet. Without that awareness, real change won’t happen.

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This is a sponsored feature paid for by EcoAlf as part of a BoF partnership.