Reimagining Denim: How LaundRe is Closing the Loop with Salli Deighton

Enter LaundRe, the UK’s first circular denim finishing hub, founded by Salli Deighton. Based in the heart of London (and right next door to us at Reskinned!), LaundRe is reshaping how brands, retailers, and recyclers bring denim back to life – with ozone, lasers, and low-water technology leading the way.

We sat down with Salli to talk about how LaundRe started, what circularity really means for denim, and why education might just be the key to fashion’s future.

Can you tell us how LaundRe started and what inspired you to set it up?

LaundRe started as an idea about seven years ago. It’s taken us quite a while to get there and raise the money. I've worked in the denim industry since the 90s. I used to work for Wrangler when we still had factories in the UK and we had laundries to wash the jeans after production. The laundries used to be very, very dirty finishing units using pumice stones to do the stone wash, heavy chemicals including bleach and up to 120 litres of water per jean.

UK Denim production moved to countries in Asia such as Pakistan and Bangladesh around 2000. Since then, there hasn't been anywhere to add the washed finish to jeans in the UK. I've worked for many brands and retailers like M&S, Wrangler, Lee, Tesco's F&F, ASOS – working with them to produce sustainable denim.

When I was at Marks and Spencer's working on a very large programme there, they needed a reshoring facility or the ability to finish some garments in the UK. And there was no facility. At ASOS, there was a lot of stock in the warehouse and we were trying to refinish that stock to bring it back to life and use it. And again, there was no solution in the UK. So the idea of LaundRe was born.

Just before Covid, we put plans together and started to raise money. We're the first female founders of a laundry in the world so it was tough to fundraise but with the support of some great partners and investors, we managed to achieve our raise in December 2024.

We found this wonderful site alongside Reskinned in January 2025 and we opened our services to the industry at the end of July this year. And we're very proud to be here. And now at long last, there is somewhere for brands and retailers to go to do low flexible volume to finish onshore and to reduce overbuying and unnecessary waste.

How is LaundRe helping to make denim more circular?

LaundRe is here to make denim more circular. We’re helping brands, retailers, and recyclers refinish their unsold or deadstock using our clean and green, environmentally friendly technology. We use ozone to help sterilise and clean the jeans. We use laser to add dry processing or patterns to the garments, and we use low water technology with a nebulising system, which enables us to minimise our chemistry and also minimise our water consumption

Denim is a product that is very durable and, you know, hardwearing. Or, it should be. We have been working on a project with the recyclers taking end-of-life jeans that are just dirty and renewing them through using our ozone technology to sterilise them.

We've been adding a laser file to update the jeans and a post-wash. So we've been creating premium, beautiful vintage jeans that are as clean as new. It’s a whole new opportunity to create new fashion from discarded jeans.

Unfortunately, there's a lot of waste out there. There's a lot of polyester, there's a lot of fibres and materials which are difficult to recycle. Being able to work with good-quality, durable old products and bring them back to life is going to make a huge impact on UK circularity.

We also work with the brands – if they're sat on a warehouse full of stock, if they've missed a season or a product hasn't sold because of the finish or the colour or for whatever reason – we can take that stock, add a new pattern or finish, and they can use their unsold stock as a new responsible fast fashion.

So instead of buying risky fast fashion in volume, we enable them to use their write-off stock and recapture that value in that stock. It's a dynamic change, but we're very excited to be here and help drive circularity.

Why is circularity important?

Circularity is so important. It has to be the future. And we've all seen images of the Atacama Desert and huge piles of waste around the world. The way textiles are being disposed of is horrific.

We know that, as a denim industry, we sell about 70 million pairs of jeans each year in the UK. A lot more now are coming from used or from charity or from vintage, which is excellent. But the stats out earlier in 2021, I believe, showed that 25% of all garments bought are never sold.

That 25% of 70 million is a huge quantity. And if LaundRe can help refinish those unsold jeans and give them another life, enable them to be reused as new fashion stocks, we can make a massive difference.

We want to make great products and do it responsibly. If we don't start to change the way we produce garments now, we're heading down a very slippery slope and there'll be nothing left of our planet.

What’s one change you’d love to see across the fashion industry?

The one change I'd love to see across the fashion industry is knowledge and education. That is key to everything we do.

I've worked in the industry for a long time. I'm very privileged that I've been able to travel and go to factories. Everything I've learned is because I've been able to experience it. Unfortunately, travel budgets have been cut and manufacturing has moved overseas long long-haul. So a lot of buyers and designers don’t get to travel until they're quite senior.

That knowledge and that learning isn't there. And it isn't coming through the universities either because the equipment isn't here to learn. That's what we hope LaundRe will bring back. We're going to be able to educate people, show them how a machine works, show them how the chemicals work.

We take it very seriously. We love what we do with a passion, and we want to share our knowledge and make sure that the future can do it better. Garments are a science. We dye them, we engineer them, we make them into a pair of jeans. So we have to respect the science and think about every part of that process.

Designers and buyers have to be able to immerse themselves, learn this technology and science to produce garments much more responsibly. You wouldn't build a house without an architect. So you can't build a pair of jeans without understanding all the processes around that to enable us to wash it better and produce garments in a better way.

The one thing we must change is empowering knowledge, and we're here at LaundRe to help everybody do that.

At Reskinned, we believe collaboration drives circularity and Salli’s work at LaundRe is proof that innovation and sustainability can go hand in hand.

By reimagining how denim is finished, refurbished, and reintroduced into circulation, LaundRe is giving the industry a practical roadmap for change – one that values craftsmanship, longevity, and creativity.

Circularity isn’t a distant goal. It’s being built right here in London.

Watch our interview with Salli for a behind the scenes look at the work LaundRe is doing. Want to be a part of the journey to circularity? Send us your unwanted clothes or shop for pre-loved items looking for a new home.