1 December 2025
How Social Responsibility Is Changing the Fashion Industry
- Diversity
Ghent Winter Circus, 17 October 2025 – With the launch of new features in the COSH! Digital Wardrobe, circular fashion becomes personal, tangible and fun. Just in time for International Repair Day on 18 October.
When you indicate in the COSH! app that you no longer wear an item of clothing, for example because it is damaged, too small or out of fashion, the app will automatically refer you to local repair points, second-hand shops or resale initiatives in your neighbourhood. Want to use this feature without digitising your entire wardrobe? Then simply upload the one item that needs to be repaired, donated or resold. This creates a truly circular movement between you as a consumer, businesses and the local economy.
The digital wardrobe is an innovative application that uses technology to change behaviour: citizens learn to appreciate their clothes for longer, understand their own habits better and make choices that both feel good and do good.
From fashion to mindset: take control of your wardrobe, enjoy your choices
The COSH! Digital Wardrobe is more than just a digital tool: it’s a way to rediscover the joy of your wardrobe.
Users discover which items bring them the most joy, which outfits they wear most often, and can indicate why some clothes remain untouched. This insight not only leads to better decisions when making future purchases, but also brings more structure and peace of mind to everyday life.
By seeing data about their own clothing usage, users experience a dopamine boost with every small step forward: creating a new outfit combination, wearing a garment more often, having something repaired or successfully reselling it. Where fashion trends quickly fade, Digital Wardrobe builds lasting satisfaction through reuse, style and local initiatives.
The app allows people to take pride in what they already have, fashion becomes something positive and personal again. It’s no longer about buying, but about cherishing, combining and discovering what you really like to wear. Niki de Schryver - Founder COSH!
Automatic connection with more sustainable shops
A special innovation within the COSH! Digital Wardrobe is its seamless integration with selected sustainable businesses in the COSH! network.
When a user purchases an item of clothing from a shop that collaborates with the app, that item automatically appears in their digital wardrobe, complete with price, product description and brand details.
Even while shopping online, consumers can see at a glance how a new item would fit in with the clothes they already own. As soon as they add something to their shopping basket at a participating store, it appears temporarily in their digital wardrobe, allowing them to style, combine and evaluate whether it is really a valuable addition.
At present, the entire circular COSH! Loop is already working with 50 progressive fashion entrepreneurs who have implemented this integration. In Belgium, you can find 30 of them, 11 of which are in Antwerp (Supersgoods, Binti, Chlues, ABELONE WILHELMSEN, Atelier content, HOST – House of Sweets & Things, Mon Col Anvers, Ophelia Lingerie, Scruples, Anna Rosa Moschouti, Kibibi and REST), 4 in Ghent (Wolvis, Atelier Content, Terra Cotta and Ida e Volta), 3 in Limburg (My Melonade, Janne Landuyt and KNAP), 1 in Brussels (Infantium Victoria), 1 in Mechelen (Supergoods) and Godfrieds Jeans Atelier (West Flanders region).
In the Netherlands, there are 10, including 3 in Amsterdam (Iris Nijenhuis, Julahas and The Knitwit Stable), 2 in Utrecht (MUSA Intimates and Sophie Stone), 1 in Rotterdam (Xzota), one in Maastricht (Meisje met de Parels), two in Eindhoven (Methods, Common Era) and one in Arnhem (Spica Lifestyle).
In Germany, the first 5 shops implemented this integration, including 3 in Berlin (Wesen, Beverly Berlin and Ayani) and 1 in Aachen (Sweersocean). The list of partners continues to grow and is shared via the COSH! Digital Wardrobe Instagram page, where new collaborations are also announced.
From data to action: how Wolvis optimised its business model
One of the brands that achieved tangible results thanks to even closer collaboration with COSH! is the Belgian (Ghent-based) knitwear label Wolvis.
In collaboration with the COSH! Digital Wardrobe App, Wolvis set up its resell and repair programme, which allows customers to easily have their existing Wolvis items repaired or resold.
The data from the joint research, with financial support from the province of East Flanders through the Circular Chain programme (Circulaire Keten), also confirmed an important suspicion within the company: the merino yarns used in the first collections proved to be more susceptible to pilling and breaking than the yarns used in the more recent collections. Thanks to these insights, Wolvis was able to review its material choices and further optimise its business model with a greater focus on quality, circularity and customer retention.
The collaboration with COSH! not only gave us insight into our customers’ behaviour, but also into our own product quality, the data confirmed our suspicions and led to concrete changes in how we produce and reuse. Isabeau Goddé - project manager Wolvis
This case study demonstrates how the COSH! Digital Wardrobe not only guides consumers, but also assists brands in making data-driven decisions and strengthening circular business models.
Data that makes circularity tangible
Whereas previous wardrobe studies conducted by universities or colleges were limited to one-off surveys, COSH! Digital Wardrobe offers live insights into how often clothes are actually worn. The application links the brands in wardrobes to the unique COSH! Brand Index, which assesses brands on seven impact themes and sustainability levels. This allows users to see how sustainable the items in their wardrobe really are. Users can see at a glance how ethical their wardrobe really is in their personal app statistics.
Since its launch a year ago, the initiative has grown into a testament to its impact:
- 10,000 downloads and 1,250 active users per month (+2451% in one year)
- 50,000+ garments tracked, with data from 6,000 brands
- 35 shops fully connected, with purchase data automatically transferred to the app of the already connected user
- 1,200 local entrepreneurs in Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany, from repair shops to swaps and clothing libraries
We can clearly see that fast fashion is only worn three to seven times on average, while timeless slow fashion pieces last dozens of times longer, thanks to this data, we not only know what people wear, but also why they no longer wear something, and we can help them give it a second life. Niki de Schryver - Oprichter COSH!
A first for consumers and policymakers
The data collected shows clear differences in behaviour between generations and brands.
Gen Z already has 22% second-hand clothing in their wardrobes, compared to 14% among Millennials. And despite Vinted and second-hand shops being flooded with donated fast fashion, we see that only 3% of all Zara items in wardrobes were purchased second-hand.
These insights are valuable for consumers who want to be more conscious about their wardrobe, but also for policymakers and brands who want to measure how circular habits are developing. The app thus supports the collection of ESG data in line with European regulations on, for example, Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), the Right to Repair and the European Sustainable Product Regulation (ESPR). The app thus supports the implementation of European regulations on Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) and the ESPR.
A European innovation with local impact
The COSH! Digital Wardrobe was developed as part of VLAIO’s BACK (Burger Activatie voor het sluiten van Circulaire Ketens, or Citizen Activation for Closing Circular Chains) project, in collaboration with COSH! and The Acquired. It is the first European application to combine longevity tracking, digital product passports and local circular solutions.
With one simple tool, consumers can analyse, repair or resell their clothing, while contributing to less textile waste and lower CO₂ emissions.
In this way, COSH! links personal well-being to social progress: more enjoyment of fashion, less waste in the world.
Every jumper, dress or coat tells a story. With the Digital Wardrobe, we not only measure behaviour, but also bring back satisfaction in what we wear. Niki de Schryver - Founder COSH!
About COSH!
COSH! is a Belgian platform that helps consumers, brands and cities make more sustainable choices. With a network of more than 1,250 local businesses in Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany, COSH! supports the transition to a fairer and more circular fashion industry.
The COSH! Digital Wardrobe app is available for free in the App Store and Google Play Store
