Lo & Sons partners with The Renewal Workshop to create circular colutions for returns and excess inventory

Brooklyn, N.Y. (February 10, 2020) - Lo & Sons, the Brooklyn-based designer and manufacturer of premium travel bags, is proud to partner with The Renewal Workshop to repair Lo & Sons’ returns and excess inventory totaling more than 5,000 pounds thus far. The Renewal Workshop is the leading provider of circular solutions for apparel and textile brands and will be repairing and reselling Lo & Sons bags on its website in 2020.

The first travel lifestyle bag brand to partner with The Renewal Workshop, Lo & Sons focuses on reducing its environmental impact through timeless, premium designs with longevity in mind to combat a short life cycle and exploring more and more sustainable materials and processes. This partnership with The Renewal Workshop addresses another facet—how to minimize waste and upcycle products and materials to achieve circular fashion.

Every year, apparel and textile brands and retailers collect millions of unsellable garments via returns, warranty, damages, defects, over-production and stale inventory. Prior to the creation of The Renewal Workshop in 2016, there was no infrastructure to support the refurbishment of these products and brands were left with suboptimal solutions, such as overseas donation or landfill.

Founded by apparel industry veterans Nicole Bassett and Jeff Denby, The Renewal Workshop is organized around the idea that businesses have multiple responsibilities for generating positive, lasting value. In its own factory, The Renewal Workshop provides all of the services required to take unsellable products and turn them into like-new products available for resale.

The Renewal Workshop’s proprietary operations include sorting and grading products, cleaning using state of the art waterless technology, verifying the quality and repairing items that need repairs, and finally, assuring the quality of products before they are ready for resale.

“The Renewal Workshop helps us to close the loop for our product life cycle in an authentic way that is traceable,” said Jan Lo, CEO of Lo & Sons. “We are always seeking opportunities to improve our supply chain processes. Through The Renewal Workshop, Lo & Sons can make a meaningful next step towards a more circular economy model.”

In its warehouse, The Renewal Workshop thoroughly cleans each bag. Any damage to a garment or bag – from broken zippers to missing buttons to tears – is repaired, creating Renewed Apparel and Bags that meet the highest standard of quality certified by the brands. For any product that can’t be renewed, The Renewal Workshop responsibly manages the upcycling, downcycling or recycling of it in order to optimize the resources already invested. Nothing ever goes to landfill.

“The Lo & Sons team’s curiosity and passion about moving the brand towards more sustainable practices enabled us to work together and show that the fashion industry can be beautiful as well as take care of the planet by taking responsibility of what is made,” said Nicole Bassett, co-founder of The Renewal Workshop. “The Lo & Sons bags are something the Renewed customer is going to appreciate.”

About Lo & Sons

After watching their mother abandon yet another bag, Helen Lo’s sons Jan and Derek suggested she invent one herself. But as a woman in her mid-60s, Helen wondered how she would get from Point A to Point B. Jan and Derek ditched their respective day jobs in advertising and product design research (and nightly gigs as DJs) to make Helen’s dream a reality.

Nine years and more than 20+ product styles later, Lo & Sons are in an ongoing pursuit to create stylish yet functional bags that are built to travel light without compromising functionality and style. Every single high-quality feature of each product is designed to meet the needs of frequent travelers, movers and shakers.

Each bag is thoughtfully designed with features like meticulously placed pockets, compartments for tech essentials, and elements for smooth travels, like an adjustable sleeve for sliding over suitcase handles. Translation: less fumbling, more globetrotting. You can shop Lo & Sons products and learn more about their brand at www.loandsons.com.

About The Renewal WorkshopThe Renewal Workshop is the leading provider of circular solutions for apparel and textile brands. Our proprietary Renewal System takes discarded apparel and textiles and turns them into Renewed Products, upcycling materials or feedstock for recycling. We are helping brands reduce their negative environmental impacts and expand their businesses by adopting circular practices.

We offer Apparel and Textile Renewal, Sales Channel Management for Renewed Products, Circular Mapping, Data Collection and Textile Recycling R&D. The Renewal Workshop operates a zero waste circular system that recovers value out of what has already been created as a way of serving customers, partners, and planet. For additional information, please visit www.therenewalworkshop.com.