The Gloverall Renewed collection is a programme that takes surplus and deadstock cloth from Gloverall's own archive and supplies it to independent British makers, who use it to produce new garments and accessories. It is not a marketing strategy. It is a practical answer to one of fashion's most straightforward problems: what to do with high-quality material that would otherwise go unused.
This is worth explaining clearly, because the fashion industry's use of sustainability language has made it difficult to distinguish genuine practice from performance. What Gloverall Renewed does is specific, verifiable, and different from what most brands mean when they describe something as sustainable or circular. The difference is worth understanding.
What is Gloverall Renewed?
Gloverall Renewed is a collaboration model. Over more than seven decades of production, Gloverall has accumulated an archive of material too good to go to waste: boiled wool, archive wool blends and surplus cotton, along with original Gloverall trims and end-of-line garments. Renewed supplies that material to selected independent British makers, who design and produce new pieces from it. The resulting pieces are sold through Gloverall as part of the Renewed collection.
The key word is surplus. This is cloth that already exists, it has already been woven, dyed and processed. The environmental cost of its production has already been incurred. The question Renewed answers is not "how do we make cloth more sustainably" but "what do we do with excellent cloth that would otherwise not become a garment". The answer is to put it in the hands of makers who will use it well.
Who makes the Renewed pieces?
Gloverall selects independent British makers for each Renewed collaboration, small producers with the craft knowledge to work with quality cloth and produce pieces worth keeping for years. Collaborators so far have included Reworked 348, a menswear studio that builds utility-led pieces from nothing but surplus, and Minnessak, whose run of bags was cut from leftover Gloverall wool. Each collaboration produces a limited number of pieces: the supply of surplus cloth is finite, which means the Renewed collection is genuinely limited rather than nominally so.
This model is also a form of support for independent British production. The makers who participate in Renewed gain access to quality material, archive cloth from a brand that has been making coats in England since 1951, that they would not otherwise have, and Gloverall lends its technical expertise alongside the cloth: knowledge of how each material behaves, gathered over decades of working with it. The relationship is mutual rather than extractive: Gloverall finds a use for its surplus; the maker gets excellent cloth and the know-how that comes with it; the customer gets a piece that would not otherwise exist.
Why this is different from greenwashing
Greenwashing has a consistent pattern: vague language, unverifiable claims, and sustainability positioned as a marketing angle rather than an operational commitment. "Eco-conscious", "responsible materials", "better for the planet", these are phrases that require no evidence and make no specific commitment. They are designed to create an impression rather than to describe a practice.
Gloverall Renewed is the opposite of this. The practice is specific: surplus cloth is identified, makers are selected, garments are produced, pieces are sold. The environmental mechanism is straightforward: material that already exists is used rather than wasted, no new fibre, no new dyeing, no new weaving. The makers are named. And because the surplus is our own, we know its provenance: which line each length of cloth was woven for, and why it was never used. There is no claim being made that cannot be verified.
It is also worth noting what Renewed does not claim to be. It is not a solution to fashion's systemic overproduction problem. It does not offset the environmental cost of Gloverall's main range. It is not a certification or a label. It is a specific programme with a specific mechanism, and that specificity is part of what makes it credible.
What makes a sustainable wool coat?
Wool has two properties that matter here, and neither needs embellishing: it renews itself with every shearing season, and it breaks down naturally once a garment's life is over. Its warmth, water-resistance and durability are properties of the fibre itself.
A genuinely sustainable wool coat is one made to last: from quality material, with construction that can be repaired rather than replaced, and designed to be worn for as long as it remains serviceable. Gloverall's duffle coats, the Men's Original Monty Duffle Coat among them, are built with this logic: made to be worn, lived in and passed on, worn for decades rather than seasons. Toggles and jute rope can be replaced through the Care & Repair range. The Renewed programme is the extension of that logic to the cloth itself: if the material is good enough to last, it should not go to waste. (Where every coat in the Heritage Collection is made is set out on our Made in England page.)
Is buying Renewed better than buying new?
From an environmental perspective, a Renewed piece uses material that already existed rather than requiring new production from the fibre stage: no new fibre is grown or spun for it, no new dyeing takes place, no new weaving. From a quality perspective, the cloth in a Renewed piece is the same Gloverall archive material, the same wools and cottons used across the Heritage Collection's production history, worked into a new design by a maker who has chosen to use it. The result is a piece that is both genuinely limited and genuinely considered, a rare combination.
The Renewed range
The current range runs from workwear to accessories: the Men's Renewed Works Jacket, Works Button Jacket and Works Zip Jacket, the Serviceman Vest and Works Vest, the Renewed Tote Bag and Hulme Cap, and the Minnessak crossbody and weekend bags. Every piece is cut from Gloverall's own surplus cloth, and the full collection lives at Gloverall Renewed.
Frequently Asked Questions
For what the Renewed collection is, who makes it, and how to hear about new drops, see the Gloverall Renewed collection page, those questions are answered there.
Is Gloverall Renewed the same as second-hand or repaired clothing?
No. Gloverall Renewed produces new garments and accessories from surplus and deadstock cloth, it is not a resale or restoration programme. The pieces in the Renewed collection are new, designed and made by independent British makers using Gloverall archive material that would otherwise go unused. For repairs to existing Gloverall coats, the Care & Repair range supplies replacement toggles, jute rope and buttons.
What is deadstock cloth?
Deadstock is finished fabric that was produced but never used: cloth woven for lines that never went ahead, end-of-roll lengths left over from production runs, or material held in an archive after a line was discontinued. It has already been woven, dyed and finished, the resource cost has been incurred, but it was never cut into garments. Renewed exists to use Gloverall's own deadstock rather than write it off.
What is the difference between upcycling and recycling?
Recycling breaks a material down, shredding, re-spinning, reprocessing, usually losing quality in the process. Upcycling uses the material as it is, at its original quality, to make something new. Renewed pieces are upcycled in this sense: the cloth is not reprocessed, it is simply cut and sewn into a new design. The value of the material is maintained rather than downgraded.
Why doesn't Gloverall use the surplus cloth in its main range?
Because surplus, by its nature, exists in quantities and mixes that a main production run cannot use: odd lengths, end-of-roll pieces, cloth woven for discontinued lines and colours. A production run needs consistent material in volume; a small independent maker can design around whatever the archive holds. That mismatch is exactly why the collaboration model works.
