C&A stops producing sustainable jeans in Europe

C&A has closed its denim factory in Mönchengladbach, Germany. This brings an unexpected end to a groundbreaking, sustainable innovation project.

Forever Denim

In 2021, C&A opened the “Factory for Innovation in Textiles” (FIT), where the fashion company wanted to investigate if denim production in Europe was feasible. RetailDetail visited the site in September 2023, and saw how the “Forever Denim” trousers were made from partly recycled European fabrics, with renewable energy, by people with a distance to the labour market. Extensive automation was intended to partly offset the higher costs.

However, it now appears that despite great efforts, the factory was unable to meet the fashion retailer’s ambitious goals. The FIT factory has been closed, local newspaper Rheinische Post reports. It added that this was not an easy decision for the company, which says it will continue to make efforts to improve in the area of ​​sustainability.