The company

Nudie Jeans is a Swedish denim brand founded in 2001 and headquartered in Gothenburg. Over the years, the company has expanded its operations across Europe, North America, and Asia. Its product range includes jeans, apparel, and accessories.

Extending product lifespan

Nudie Jeans has developed a business model rooted in longevity, responsibility, and circularity. The company promotes the idea that denim improves with age, and that care, repair, and reuse should be integral to fashion consumption. Its mission explicitly challenges the linear "take-make-waste" model by offering tangible services to support a circular approach:

• Repair: Nudie Jeans offers free repairs on all its jeans. Customers are encouraged to bring their worn jeans to any Nudie Jeans Repair Shop for free mending. The company operates 33 physical repair shops in 20 cities and collaborates with over 15 partners to offer local repair stations and scale up its circular capacity. Additionally, Nudie provides free DIY repair kits containing denim patches, needles, and thread, along with instructions, for customers who prefer to mend their jeans at home, reinforcing a culture of self-reliance and garment care.
• Reuse: Alongside repair, resale and reuse form the second pillar of Nudie Jeans’ service ecosystem. Customers receive a 20% discount on a new pair when they return an old pair of Nudie jeans, incentivising engagement with circular practices. Returned jeans are not downcycled or sent to landfills; instead, they are assessed and either cleaned and resold under the “Re-use” collection or repurposed for other applications (e.g., patching materials). The Re-use collection is marketed under the same brand and often displayed side by side with new products in stores, normalising reuse and shifting customer perception toward pre-owned fashion.

Finally, for garments that have reached end-of-life, Nudie Jeans ensures that textiles are directed to appropriate recycling streams, either mechanical or chemical, depending on their condition.

The overall impact

Since launching its free repair programme, which has grown steadily year after year, Nudie Jeans has repaired approximately 500,000 pairs of jeans. In 2024 alone, the company repaired 68,342 pairs. Most of these repairs took place in Europe, with the Netherlands, Sweden, and Germany leading in volume. In the same year, Nudie also collected 19,956 pairs of post-consumer jeans and sold 3,513 under the Re-use collection.

The business model has reached operational maturity. Nudie’s repair system is now professionalised, with trained staff, standardised repair procedures, and integrated logistics. Reselling used jeans and offering repairs not only reduces production costs but also generates new revenue streams and strengthens brand loyalty. 

This approach aligns with European Commission goals on textile circularity, supports the growing emphasis on Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) schemes, and meets market demand, as consumers increasingly seek responsible brands, while raising awareness about the consequences of fast fashion. 

Finally, Nudie Jeans’ model extends beyond internal operations. It fosters collaboration across the textile ecosystem: suppliers and production partners are transparently listed and monitored for fair labour practices; academia and civil society are engaged through knowledge-sharing and advocacy; and cross-sector partnerships support creative upcycling and material reuse initiatives. The company recently received funding from the Swedish Energy Agency to scale up repair and reuse efforts as part of a research and innovation project, with Sweden serving as the pilot market.

Conclusion

The repair and reuse model developed by Nudie Jeans demonstrates how brands can take proactive steps to reduce environmental impact while strengthening brand identity and customer loyalty. In contrast to fast fashion, which encourages rapid consumption and disposability, Nudie Jeans presents a commercially viable alternative that integrates circularity into its core values and operations, proving that sustainability and profitability can go hand in hand.