ABA Labels is the first Australian fashion business to partner with new fashion waste tech platform Swappay.
The platform will allow customers to swap their unwanted clothes for ‘coins’ which can be exchanged for digital dollars.
The technology allows both consumers and retailers to further contribute to the circular fashion economy, helping to tackle the 23kg of fashion waste the average Australian sends to landfill each year.
Using the platform, customers can locate and swap five items they no longer wear that are still in good condition (regardless of when or from where they were purchased), log their return into the system, create a free shipping label, return the reusable items and then receive the digital coins.
These coins can then be used to financially contribute to new items with participating retailers, to a value of each retailer’s choice, with ABA Labels' brand Chancery setting its coins to the value of $30 per coin.
Meanwhile, the returned items will later be distributed to charities and not-for-profit partners, to extend the life of each garment.
Speaking to Ragtrader in late 2020, ABA Labels head of creative Sara Wilson foreshadowed this partnership, calling it a new way to purchase fashion.
"We are at the beginning of an incredible brand journey, and on the cusp of launching ground-breaking innovation in technology, sustainability and even addressing the ways that we as consumers purchase fashion," she said at the time.
Swappay will launch on 26th January 2021, across ABA Labels’ nine in-house brands: Calli, Tussah, Chancery, The Fated, BWLDR, Willa, Reux, St MRLO and Savel.
ABA Labels and Swappay share their founder, Paul Elsibai.