At first glance, there is almost nothing to say about NEUMÜHLE’s new hoodie. It is a plain, cotton and simply cut sweater with a small logo. There are no futuristic fibers or giant sustainability slogans on it. There are no bright colors like Persik’s bags. You could even say it’s a bit boring.
And that is precisely the point. The Zurich-based label has released a Circular Mono Hoodie built around an idea that sounds almost absurdly obvious –– make a piece of clothing from one material. The NEUMÜHLE fabric is 100% organic cotton and more unusually, the sewing thread is cotton too. There is no elastane mixed into the textile construction.
NEUMÜHLE is selling the limited-run hoodie for CHF 139 (about $169 USD) and has paired it with a take-back program intended to give the garment a route back into a material stream at the end of its useful life.
A label saying “cotton” doesn’t necessarily mean every part of a garment is cotton. Stretch jeans commonly mix cotton with elastane, also known as spandex or Lycra. Cotton T-shirts may contain elastane to help them keep their shape. Socks often combine cotton with polyester, nylon and elastane to keep them up.
Then there are the parts we barely notice: polyester sewing thread, synthetic care labels, elastic cuffs, polymer-based prints, zippers, buttons and cords. All of these additions often solve real problems such as stretch. But what works well during a garment’s life can become a problem when somebody tries to recycle it.
Textile recycling is easier when recyclers know what material they are dealing with and when that material is relatively pure.
A 2026 study from Wageningen University & Research found that 61% of discarded textiles in the Dutch clothing system studied consisted of blended materials. The researchers concluded that monomaterial designs or easily separable components are better suited to efficient textile-to-textile recycling.
And laws in Europe are changing. Pretty soon all clothes produced there will need to be sustainable. While H&H invented fast fashion, they should be responsible for solving the problems they create.
That is the thinking behind the Mono Hoodie. A small amount of elastane may seem insignificant, but it means the recycler is dealing with more than one fiber type. Multiply that across millions of garments and a tiny design decision becomes a major waste problem. The Mono Hoodie is clean from the beginning. Like clothing used to be.
Think about the other issues: Polyester, nylon and elastane are plastics. As synthetic clothing is worn and washed, it can shed microscopic fibers into wastewater and the environment.
An Empa study of polyester textiles demonstrated that polyester clothing releases microplastic fibers during washing. The amount varies depending on the fabric, garment age and washing conditions. Cotton also sheds fibers, so natural fabrics are not impact-free. But cotton fibers themselves are not plastic and they biodegrade. By eliminating synthetic fibers from the basic textile construction, NEUMÜHLE removes one source of plastic microfiber pollution.
Designing backwards from the trash bin
The most interesting thing about the hoodie is not really cotton. It is the order in which the company is thinking. Most clothes are designed around questions such as appearance, stretch, cost and manufacturing. The Mono Hoodie adds another question at the beginning: what happens when this garment is finished?
“We are rethinking clothing. It should be worn for years, bring joy and eventually return to a material stream. That is why we consider the end of a garment’s life right from the design stage – and work backwards from there,” says Andreas Fehr, co-founder of NEUMÜHLE.
NEUMÜHLE also collects returned garments and works with recycling partners. Customers who return a Mono Hoodie receive a voucher for 20% off another purchase. They seem to have embraced the impossibly sustainable business ethos of Jeffrey Hollender, the founder of Seventh Generation. He believes that corporations need to be responsible for all the wastefulness they produce and NEUMÜHLE is shining the torch for this principle.
Of course, recyclable does not automatically mean recycled. The garment still has to be collected and reach an appropriate recycler. But the hoodie removes one of the technical obstacles.
