Rings, Runways, and Responsibility: Tracing a New Ethic in Fashion

Jun 28, 2025

This week, we turn to the jewelry box—not as a symbol of excess, but as a site of ethical transformation. Our featured article, Beyond Beauty: How FTJCo Is Redefining Jewelry With Transparency And Fair Labor, profiles Toronto-based FTJCo Fine Jewellery, a company proving that radical transparency, regenerative sourcing, and fair labor can coexist with fine craftsmanship and luxury. From lab-grown diamonds to Fairmined gold and lifetime warranties, FTJCo invites consumers to see adornment as a form of accountability.

This week’s Essential Reads brings us a world of fashion reinvention. From vintage couture to oat-husk textiles, fashion is no longer just seasonal—it’s cyclical and circular.

In Research Corner, we zoom out from trends to examine fashion as a system of organizing. It’s a timely reminder that what we wear is never just style—it’s signal, structure, and strategy.

Let’s dive into this week’s stories of regeneration in luxury and labor—where value is traced, not hidden; waste is redesigned, not discarded; and fashion speaks not just to identity, but to impact.

Featured Article:

In this Forbes article, I spotlight FTJCo Fine Jewellery, a Toronto-based brand redefining luxury by centering transparency, ethical sourcing, and regenerative materials in fine jewelry. Originally founded as the Fair Trade Jewellery Company, FTJCo quickly became North America’s first retailer of Fairmined gold and pioneered a new material standard with its AKARA People+Planet Gold, a blend of recycled and responsibly mined sources.

Led by CEO Kesha Frank, the employee-owned, Living Wage Certified B Corp prioritizes traceable supply chains, fair labor practices, and open consumer education. From SCS-certified lab-grown diamonds to visible workshops and lifetime warranties, FTJCo offers clients radical transparency and sustainability rooted in both people and planet.

FTJCo’s model shows how trust, craftsmanship, and third-party verification can push a legacy industry toward circularity and climate-conscious innovation—reframing jewelry not just as adornment, but as ethical expression.

Essential Reads:

Vintage Reimagined

Morphew, a high-end fashion, art and lifestyle brand, transforms rare vintage materials into bespoke luxury garments. Embracing a “slow shop” ethos, the brand offers an immersive retail experience and champions timeless design over fast fashion. Its regenerative practice truly exemplifies the slogan: “Vintage is in our DNA.”

Recrafted Elegance

Miu Miu’s Upcycled collection revives vintage garments through innovative design, turning pre-loved pieces into one-of-a-kind luxury fashion. Originally launched in 2020, the initiative has grown into a core part of the brand’s identity—featuring hand-finished garments and accessories made from deadstock and heritage fabrics.

Fashion from Waste

Researchers at Chalmers University are pioneering a regenerative textile solution by turning agricultural waste—like oat husks and wheat straw—into sustainable clothing fibers. Using a simplified, chemical-free soda pulping method, this innovation bypasses traditional cotton and wood-based textiles, reducing environmental impact while adding value to farming byproducts.

Cotton to Care

The White Company, the British home and lifestyle brand known for its monochrome minimalism, has joined the Cotton Lives On™ initiative, repurposing unwearable cotton textiles into roll mats for people experiencing homelessness. As part of its post–B Corp commitment to circularity, this step reflects a broader shift in UK retail toward end-of-life solutions for cotton, a major contributor to textile waste.

Circular Sparkle

Swarovski’s Chroma Twist collection exemplifies sustainable luxury through modular, reversible jewelry designed with the Circular Design Framework. Created with recycled metals and ReCreated Crystals that use 40% fewer natural resources, each piece promotes product longevity and reduces waste.

Sustainable Flagship Store

Uniqlo’s upcoming Shanghai flagship blends eco-conscious retail with innovative design, showcasing the brand’s growing commitment to sustainability in fashion. The store will feature recycled packaging, energy-efficient systems, and sustainably sourced materials, while engaging local culture through artist collaborations.

Recycling for Rewards

Prague’s new textile recycling initiative incentivizes residents to reduce clothing waste by earning credits for depositing used textiles, redeemable for sustainable fashion at partner store Genesis. Powered by the Eko-výzva digital system, the city collects and tracks donations while promoting reuse and recycling.

Planet-Friendly Fashion

Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail Ltd (ABFRL), one of India’s largest fashion sector players, is advancing regenerative fashion through its ReEarth sustainability roadmap, achieving zero landfill waste and integrating renewable energy, water recycling, and biodegradable packaging across operations. With 68% renewable energy use and 90% sustainable packaging, ReEarth embeds circularity into one of India’s largest fashion businesses.

Research Corner:

This Organization Studies article positions fashion as a rich, paradoxical site for organizational inquiry. Drawing from sociology, anthropology, and fashion theory, the authors unpack fashion not just as a global industry but as a system of organizing—of aesthetics, identity, and temporality—across individual, collective, and institutional levels.

They explore how fashion operates through tensions such as originality vs. imitation, creativity vs. commodification, and chaos vs. structure—making it a fertile ground for studying change, paradox, and cultural production in organizations. The article calls for a more serious engagement with fashion’s organizing power and its implications for ethics, sustainability, and alternative futures.

The regenerative business practices and sustainability innovations highlighted in this week's Regenerative Insights directly tackle the critical issues of corporate responsibility explored in my recent book explored in my recent book, The Profiteers: How Business Privatizes Profit and Socializes Cost.

Quick Takeaways:

Vintage revived: Morphew crafts couture from rare recycled materials.
Old made new: Miu Miu upcycles deadstock into one-of-a-kind luxury.
Grain to garment: Oat husks spun into eco-textiles in Sweden.
Cotton to care: UK brand turns rags into mats for the unhoused.
Circular sparkle: Swarovski debuts reversible, recycled crystal jewelry.
Eco flagship: Uniqlo’s Shanghai store blends green design and culture.
Credits for clothes: Prague swaps textile waste for fashion points.
Big brand shift: ABFRL powers fashion with renewables and zero waste.

Regenerative Insights