Eightyards GmbH, the wholly-owned subsidiary that Hugo Boss announced late last year, has now officially started its business operations. 

Based in Metzingen, it enables the company (in which the UK’s Frasers Group is the second-largest shareholder) to repurpose its surplus materials into new use. 

Eightyards focuses on three core business areas: reselling, reusing as well as re-, up- and downcycling of the group’s surplus textiles to customers in the fashion industry and beyond. 

It’s run by two of the company’s former employees: director Markéta Miltenberger and co-director Placido Klitzke.

“The creation of Eightyards shows our great internal talents and their entrepreneurial spirit. I am excited to see the contribution that Eightyards will deliver to the circular economy,” said Hugo Boss CEO Daniel Grieder.

As well as reselling, Eightyards offers to transform unused fabrics into new products from clothing, to tote bags, shoe bags, etuis for pens, and pillowcases. 

The new venture also has plans to extend its services to other material supply sources in the future. 

The company has already started collaborating on first projects with customers from the fashion and telecoms sector with Hugo Boss saying the ambition over the coming years is to “establish the venture as one of the key global facilitators for the repurposing of surplus materials”. 

Miltenberger said that as a subsidiary of the giant German business, “we have access to high-quality surplus materials which have been sourced under high ESG (Environment, Social, Governance) standards. This is an asset we want to leverage for our customers. Our aim is to drive cross-industry collaboration with partners beyond the fashion sector.”