Value streams for collected post-consumer textiles continue be analyzed within the global challenge to develop and employ commercially viable, yet ethical and sustainable strategies within the fashion industry. Upcycling is an existing strategy applicable to fashion production, with discarded materials used to design and create higher value products, keeping them in productive use for longer. A number of very small, niche upcycling enterprises have emerged in the UK. These brands have succeeded in creating stylistically relevant and commercially successful fashion styles utilizing waste textile materials. The advantages of scaling these enterprises up are not only environmental, but also economic and social, thereby creating a sustainable and innovative business model for UK led fashion production. Due to high levels of three key metrics of carbon, water and waste, UK government agency WRAP (Waste & Resources Action Programme) has identified textile products as priority materials for reuse and recycling. Upcycling enables a sustainable design option for reuse techniques to be employed for greatest economic and environmental benefit, in which used clothing and textiles are sourced for the production of newly designed fashion products. This paper identifies the key differences between standard fashion design and production processes and upcycled fashion design and production processes, in order to aid the development of large-scale fashion upcycling in the UK, and contribute to a circular economy.

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Yarn structure is one of the important characteristics which define yarn mechanical properties and appearance. For example, it is known that the mechanical properties of a ring-spun and an open-end spun yarn of the same linear density and produced from the same fibers are different [1,2]. This is caused by the difference in their internal structure, which can be characterized by the cross-sectional and longitudinal distribution of fibers.A staple fiber yarn is composed of short-length fibers which are assembled and twisted together. Fibers start at different distances from the beginning of the yarn. The radial positions of fibers within the yarn body change randomly (with unknown probability distribution) along the yarn axis. 1 This behavior is known as fiber migration. Fiber migration is now a universally recognized phenomenon of yarn structure which provides necessary entanglement and cohesion between the fibers, thus creating a continuous structure devised from a discrete set of fibers. This dual nature of the structure of a staple fiber yarn makes it difficult to be modeled. Theoretical and experimental investigations of structure-properties relationship of yarns conducted over Abstract A queuing model of staple fiber yarn is presented that enables the modeling and a better understanding of fiber migration in a yarn. The model provides a fine yarn structure where the migrational behavior of fibers is associated with the behavior of customers traveling across an open network of queuing systems to get services. Based on this analogy, the underlying mathematical foundation of the queuing theory is used for the modeling of yarn structure and properties. The model uses yarn technical specifications including yarn linear density and twist level, fiber linear density and length distribution, together with specific parameters such as fiber packing density distribution and migration probabilities. The model can be used for modeling a wide range of structurally different yarns; examples include marl, mottle and melange yarns, yarns with different levels of hairiness, and yarns produced by various spinning systems. The model can be used for 3D simulation of yarns in computer-aided design systems for textile design and for the prediction of mechanical properties of yarns.

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