Textile Exchange

A traditional pastoral way of life that has endured for generations in the Himalayan plateau.

Meet one of the runners-up of the Textile Exchange photography competition, in partnership with Atmos. Wasim Malik (Wasim Inshaq Malik) is a Ladakhi photographer and filmmaker documenting remote regions, observing life as it naturally unfolds.

His winning project centers on the Changpa people raising Changthangi goats, whose fine undercoats produce the prized pashmina fiber. Adapted to one of the world’s harshest high-altitude environments, Changthangi goats are central to the Changpa nomads’ pastoral way of life. Malik’s images capture close relationship between the Changpa people and their livestock, and the intricate process of handmade textile production passed down through generations of Himalayan nomads.

Despite the harsh weather, life moves forward guided by resilience, tradition, and a deep connection to the land.

🔗 Discover the full story at our link in bio.

This , we’re spotlighting the work of our friends at CottonConnect, an organization that works with cotton farmers in India to teach regenerative practices. Through methods of intercropping, replacing chemical pesticides with biopesticides, and making natural fertilizers, they’re helping thousands of farmers to improve their lands’ soil health and lower carbon emissions.

In the villages of the Amravati region in Maharasthra, India, CottonConnect has installed 13 demonstration centers where local farmers can come and see regenerative techniques firsthand and take the learnings home to their own farms. The program has been successful, with CottonConnect reporting yields increased by 4.8%, water use reduced by 14%, and 41% lower carbon emissions per acre from the project farms, in the second year of its Regenerative Cotton Pilot.

Learn more about the farmers of Maharasthra and the initiative at our link in bio.

📸: Abhishek Khedekar
CottonConnect

The women of a historic Himalayan village transforming wool into a livelihood 🧶

Elena Siretanu (Elena Sirețanu) is a runner-up of this year’s Textile Exchange photography competition in partnership with Atmos.

Her project documents the women of the Himalayan village of Naggar, in India’s Kullu Valley, where wool, plants, domestic space, and labor are closely connected. The story centers on Kullvi Whims, a community-rooted social enterprise that grew from a modest initiative with a single sewing machine and a small group of women into an expanding network of artisans. By working with indigenous Himalayan wool, natural dyes, and labor-intensive hand processes, Kullvi Whims is rebuilding a local textile chain around materials and skills that already belong to the region.

This story reflects a new understanding of regeneration—not just as a single environmental intervention, but as the rebuilding of relationships between people, materials, place and economic life.

Based between London and Chișinău, Siretanu is a Moldovan-born visual storyteller and documentary photographer. Her work is shaped by a life lived between Eastern and Western Europe and explores identity, belonging, memory, intimacy, and representation.

Discover the full visual story at our link in bio.

🎤 Meet some more of the speakers taking the stage at the 2026 Textile Exchange Conference in less than two weeks!

There’s still time to join us in Vancouver for three days of collective learning focused on the ways that we produce, choose, and reuse materials ⬇️

Under the theme The Implementation Era, this year’s event explores how we can scale what works across businesses, supply systems, and landscapes. The agenda is rooted in the realities of those leading and delivering change—from sustainability executives and practitioners to material producers.

📆 October 12-16, 2026
📍 Vancouver, Canada
🎟️ Registration is still open!

Swipe to meet the voices leading these important conversations ➡️

Learn more about the conference and register at our link in bio.

How much fiber and material do we actually produce? And how much of that comes from recycled sources?

➡️ Swipe for the data

This data is from our newly released Materials Market Report, which covers total global raw material production by weight used across all industries, as well as estimates of the production used specifically within the apparel, home textiles, bags, footwear, and technical textiles sectors.

🔗 Head to our link in bio to read the full report.

Together, we can turn these pockets of progress into lasting change 🌱

Swipe to discover the highlights from the 2026 Materials Benchmark, which includes materials sourcing data from 384 brands and retailers.

The benchmark tracks fiber and raw material volumes used by participating companies along with other sourcing best practices, enabling both individual and collective progress tracking. These companies reporting through the benchmark are demonstrating their leadership, outpacing the trends seen across the global production volume data.

Read the full factsheet at our link in bio.

🔔 Released today! Our new Materials Market Report and Materials Benchmark Insights and Trends have just been published.

📊 Each year, we release our Materials Market Report, which covers global production volumes within the textile, clothing, leather, and footwear industries, as well as across all end uses such as technical textiles used for the automotive industry.

👕 We also conduct the Materials Benchmark, a reporting system that collects data on raw materials uptake from participating brands and retailers along with key information on sourcing practices.

Data from this year’s Materials Benchmark shows that the 384 participating brands and retailers (including subsidiary brands) made meaningful progress in 2025.

For the first time, the Materials Market Report features estimates of the global production volumes flowing into products specifically for the apparel, home textiles, bags, footwear, and technical textiles industries, applying a new, updated methodology to arrive at these estimates.

⬆️ Check out the full report and benchmark factsheet at our link in bio.

💡Meet some of our speakers taking the stage at the 2026 Textile Exchange Conference next month.

The conference brings together experts from across the fashion, textile, and apparel industry for three days of collective learning focused on the ways that we produce, choose, and reuse materials.

Under the theme The Implementation Era, this year’s event explores how we can scale what works across businesses, supply systems, and landscapes. The agenda is rooted in the realities of those leading and delivering change—from sustainability executives and practitioners to material producers.

Swipe to meet the voices leading these important conversations ➡️

📆 October 12-16, 2026
📍 Vancouver, Canada
🎟️ Registration is still open!

Find out more about our conference and register at our link in bio.

We’re excited to share some of the shortlisted entries of the 2026 Textile Exchange photography competition, in partnership with Atmos. Discover all 21 stories and vote for your favorite at our link in bio 💌
 
Under the theme Fashion Regenerated, this year’s competition set out to document the potential of clothing and textiles to bring about beneficial ecological, social, and animal welfare outcomes.
 
From cotton farmers supporting the return of local biodiversity, to recyclers transforming textile waste into something brand new, examples of alternative systems are unfolding across the globe.

But to transform these local insights into learning at scale, we put out the call for stories that show how regeneration through fashion is not only possible—but already happening.
 
For the first time, shortlisted entries go through a public vote, accounting for 30% of the final judging score. Public voting is now open until August 25.
 
Cast your vote at our link in bio.