Mulberry adds digital IDs to its leather goods to boost circularity

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Jun 8, 2022

Luxury leathergoods specialist Mulberry has announced the introduction of digital IDs for its products that it says will help to “revolutionise the way luxury brands and customers connect, and steward circularity in luxury fashion”.

The company, which is a member of the Sustainable Markets Initiative Fashion Task Force, will add the IDs to all of its products by 2025.

It’s starting with them for all vintage pre-loved bags from its circular economy programme, known as the Mulberry Exchange. 

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So how does it all work? Mulberry CEO Thierry Andretta unveiled a demo of a digitised leather bag at the Global Fashion Summit in Copenhagen on Wednesday, alongside Natasha Franck, founder and CEO of enterprise software Product Cloud platform EON. Each bag is connected to an ID powered by EON.

Via the tech, customers will be able to tap their smartphones to the NFC-enabled tag fitted to each bag, and access a personalised digital experience – complete with information about their item, exclusive content and services such as authentication, repair, and resale. 

“This will create a direct and ongoing connection between Mulberry and their customers for the entire lifecycle of the product,” the company said.

It added that the ID from EON “will provide further technical infrastructure essential for accelerating circular business models – including the identification, management and inevitable authentication of the product through Mulberry’s preferred channels for resale, care and repair. The digital ID facilitates the full product lifecycle transparency and the brand’s journey to achieving net zero by 2035”.

Andretta added: “We take great pride in creating objects that are made to last, to be loved and passed onto the next generation. Through the digital ID, Mulberry can offer customers increased transparency into the unique journeys of our products, deliver services such as lifetime repair, buy-back and resale, and ensure that every bag can have multiple lives.”

And Franck said: “Over the last year, we’ve witnessed a huge industry shift in fashion’s adoption of digital ID technology. Brands are moving to implement digital IDs on their entire product portfolios, driven by increased customer demand for product transparency, the booming resale market which requires after-sale connectivity to scale, and upcoming policy which is set to make digital product IDs mandatory.”