Benim Denim: The denim startup ‘designed to shut down’

Last December, Swedish fashion startup Benim Denim opened its doors. Unlike other clothing manufacturers, Benim plans to last only as long as its 170-metre roll of recycled denim lasts.

Though the majority of startups hope for a scale-up, Benim questions the sustainability of unchecked growth by orchestrating its eventual end. Benim founders Haisam Mohammed and Noah Bramme collaborated with Renewcell, a textile recycling company, to transform the 170-metre roll of denim fabric it had salvaged into limited clothing items.

“When the fashion industry alone stands for 8-10 per cent of the global emissions, starting a brand with the intention of producing collection after collection didn’t sit right with us. So we asked ourselves how to make this lifelong dream come to life with as little environmental impact as possible,” Mohammed and Bramme said of industrial fashion’s role in sustainability and environmental efforts in a company statement.

The price of production

Benim’s brand lookbook portrays its funeral, commemorating the company’s inevitable “death”. Young men and women showcase the denim tuxedos and loose jeans manufactured by Malmö Industries, with pockets etched with white threads.

The showcased outfits retail for 4,200 kronor ($409). Separately, the denim tuxedo costs 1,950 kronor ($190), and the jeans cost 1,950 kronor ($239).

Though Benim describes its business idea as having a “twisted logic”, its concept lies in environmental efforts. Renewcell offered Benim’s founders its overflowing supply of Circulose, a material made from recycled denim, to make something worthwhile and sustainable.

“Working through an analogy, Benim Denim subversively connects’ hype marketing’ tactics to the abstract but very real physical constraints of climate and environment,” Renewcell head of communications Nora Eslander said.

Although the brand will end with its last roll of deadstock denim, co-founder Bramme hinted at efforts to utilise more recycled or unused materials in future ventures.