Some items need a little bit of a polish to give them the best chance of being sold – we think this is a really important way of reducing the problem of unsold inventory.Fashion is trapped in a broken cycle. Trends come and go at breakneck speed, creating stress and waste for brands, people and natural resources. Clothing is worn not only to insulate our bodies but also as an outlet for creative expression, a source of joy, and to provide a sense of belonging. Fashion is, of course, a really important part of our lives, but sadly, it’s  also a significant contributor to the climate crisis, so we must build a smarter fashion industry. A fashion item that is produced with materials from the earth and creative passion from people, shouldn’t collect dust in a warehouse or end up in a landfill. Instead, at Otrium, we see a future where every clothing item produced is worn. This is our purpose, however, there's a long way to go – around 12% of all items produced are never sold.Together with our brand partners, we give unsold items the best chance of finding an owner. Otrium helps labels do this in 3 key ways: 1. Polish & MatchWe polish up every piece we receive at our warehouses, ensuring they’re perfect before featuring them on our platform; giving each item the best chance of being matched with one of our 3.5 million fashion-loving members.2. Creating Data-Made FashionWe’re pioneering Data-Made Fashion to remove the guesswork from clothing creation. Data-Made Fashion enables brands to produce items based on the sales data of existing successful pieces, shopping habits, and customer demand.3. Repair & RefurbishAround a quarter of all industry-wide e-commerce fashion sales are returned, often slightly damaged and unable to be resold. Otrium repairs and refurbishes necessary items, meaning we’re able to restore and sell over half of all returns.Behind the scenes, we go to great lengths to ensure that all clothing produced is worn. In this post, we’ll take a closer look at one of our key pillars: Polish & Match, sharing with you why it’s so important to us and how it works.Why we polish & match items of clothingA lot of the clothes we receive from our partners are already in near-pristine condition, but could benefit from a few small improvements to give them the absolute best chance of being sold.  These amazing pieces then deserve to be matched with one of our fashion-loving members, so that they can be worn and truly appreciated for many years to come. We use pioneering data-led technology to ensure they’re introduced to the right person who will think that the particular item is magnificent, and totally to their taste.This is important because without a Polish & Match, many of these items would join the many millions of others that are pretty much perfect, but aren’t able to shine through and be matched with an owner. These end up unsold, sitting in warehouses or even lying in a landfill site somewhere. As a business, we’re steadfast in preventing this from happening.How we polish & match items of clothingFirstly, we receive the items at one of our state-of-the-art warehouses where one of our team will personally decide what could be done to give it the best chance of finding a new owner.Then, the polishing begins; sometimes we take better photographs, write product descriptions, press garments, steam, and add new packaging. These are all things that can ensure these fabulous items are ready to be matched with a fashion lover through our cutting-edge platform, to then be worn and loved.Polish & Match is one of the primary ways we’re revolutionising the world of fashion through technology; to make sure all clothing is worn and waste in the industry is consigned to the history books. 

Otrium’s conscious journey is forever developing and changing, always with the goal to create a positive impact. As part of our mission to have a positive impact on the life cycle of garments, we provide ‘refurbishment’ as a stage in our process. Refurbishment is described as the act of making something look new again through work such as painting, repairing or cleaning. At Otrium we are on a journey to ensure that the fashion industry is smarter in it’s process, making sure that every item of clothing is worn. However, in order to increase the attractiveness of these items, sometimes a bit of love and repair is necessary. We’re here to give those items the care and attention that they need, and to get them back onto our platform for another chance. In this post, we’ll be sharing with you why we refurbish returned items, why we think it is so important to go the extra mile by doing this. As well as this, we will explain what refurbishment means and how the process of refurbishing returns works at Otrium. Fashion is trapped in a broken cycle. Trends come and go at breakneck speed, creating stress and waste for brands, people and natural resources. Clothing is worn not only to insulate our bodies but also as an outlet for creative expression, a source of joy, and to provide a sense of belonging. Fashion is, of course, a really important part of our lives, but sadly, it’s  also a significant contributor to the climate crisis, so we must build a smarter fashion industry. A fashion item that is produced with materials from the earth and creative passion from people, shouldn’t collect dust in a warehouse or end up in a landfill. Instead, at Otrium, we see a future where every clothing item produced is worn. This is our purpose, however, there's a long way to go – around 12% of all items produced are never sold.Together with our brand partners, we’re giving all clothing the best chance of being worn. Otrium helps labels do this in 3 key ways: 1. Polish & MatchWe polish up every piece we receive at our warehouses, ensuring they’re perfect before featuring them on our platform; giving each item the best chance of being matched with one of our 3.5 million fashion-loving members.2. Creating Data-Made FashionWe’re pioneering Data-Made Fashion to remove the guesswork from clothing creation. Data-made fashion enables brands to produce items based on the sales data of existing successful pieces, shopping habits, and customer demand.3. Repair & RefurbishAround a quarter of all industry-wide e-commerce fashion sales are returned, often slightly damaged and unable to be resold. Otrium repairs and refurbishes necessary items, meaning we’re able to restore and sell over half of all returns.In this post, we’ll take a closer look at one of our key pillars: Data-Made Fashion, sharing with you why it’s so important to us and how it works.Why we refurbish items of clothing:The production of clothing is said to be growing by 2.7% annually, and less than 1% of these will be recycled into new garments. We’re here to make a lot of these returns repaired or cleaned such as a loose button or a crumpled item. Even though these items are often labelled as unsellable and thrown away, we want to rescue these items and refurbish them by hand. Our aim is to restore their value and make sure all clothing produced is worn.With our business model, we currently refurbish 50% of returned items into good-as-new condition. In 2021, we refurbished a total of 11,000 items and will continue to do so, keeping clothes in the loop for as long as possible. However, we have a solution for this. When items are returned due to different issues such as stains, sizing and quality we receive, refurbish and resell in as-good-as-new condition. How we refurbish the items of clothing: 1. We Receive and Categorise Firstly, we receive the returned items in our warehouse. Once the item is with us, we sort the garments into quality categories (A, and B). Deciding which ones are in condition to be refurbished into good-as-new quality. 2. We RefurbishWith our skilled in-house team, we then refurbish the item by hand, bringing each one back to life. Examples of how the items are refurbished include: steaming, sewing and pressing and polishing. 3. We Get the Item back onlineOnce we are satisfied with the new quality of the item, it will go back on our platform. In preparation to be received by it’s new owner. The items that we cannot refurbish into as-good-as-new quality are stored at our warehouse in a separate section. #WearIt