Taylor Swift Puts Circular Fashion Centre Stage

When Taylor Swift walked into Sunday Night Football in Kansas City, some focused on her giant engagement ring, others on her sleek ponytail and dainty earrings. But as I see it, the real show stopper was the Jersey, and not just for its style.

Taylor stepped out a custom Ganni x Cycora jersey dress and - in my eyes -circular fashion officially became a headline. Cycora was developed by textile recycler Ambercycle to replace virgin polyester with circular molecules designed for the next generation of fashion.

So what’s the big deal? Well, seeing the promotion of this material on one of the world’s biggest cultural icons is huge. It’s the kind of exposure and influence that sustainability in fashion desperately needs.

Ambercycle’s head of brand, Nava Esmailizadeh, told Sourcing Journal the sight of Cycora on Taylor Swift was deeply symbolic.

“This moment captures the very reason we’ve spent the past 10 years building what we have,” she continued. “We remember the early days when creating even one garment brought us so much joy, because it represented the possibility of a new system for fashion; one that could reimagine waste as the foundation for something beautiful and enduring.”

The Science Behind the Jersey (in 60 seconds)

Cycora is part of Ganni’s Fabrics of the Future program, started in 2019 to research, test and eventually scale innovative materials that (according to Ganni) can “challenge conventional material methods, paving the way for the future of fashion”.

Credit: Cycora's Instagram

Among the innovations Ganni explored, Ambercycle’s Cycora was a standout. Ambercycle transforms post-industrial and post-consumer waste into regenerated polyester through its proprietary molecular regeneration process - known as “Ambercycling.” This technology breaks materials down to their building blocks, then rebuilds them into high-quality fibers that rival virgin polyester but with a dramatically smaller climate impact.

The potential was compelling enough that, by the end of 2024, Ganni locked in a four-year offtake agreement to secure a steady stream of Cycora. Early impact assessments suggest the material can cut greenhouse gas emissions by nearly half compared to traditional polyester.

Taylor’s Sustainable storytelling

So while Ambercycle’s role is to build the material technology. Creative partners like Ganni bring it to life. And when those two forces converge in a cultural moment, something powerful happens.

“Our community and partners have all been so excited about it—because it’s not just a win for us, it’s a win for the entire industry,” Esmailizadeh explains. “It shows how collaboration, creativity and innovation can come together to push circularity into the mainstream.”

I also see it as a showcase of how the sustainable fashion ecosystem is on the right track. For too long, sustainability in fashion has been treated as a technical detail; a line item in the supply chain rather than a story on the front page. This moment flips that narrative.

This is a win for circularity because it removes the notion that circularity needs to just be an asterisk. That it exists behind the scenes. Sustainability should be centre stage, something to show off about, and in doing so can redefine what fashion is for the better.