Virgin Atlantic’s uniform department: sustainability is in the details

To be truly sustainable, an airline has to make hard choices – and live by them. At Virgin Atlantic, even the Uniforms department contributes to the goal of sustainability. Sometimes in very surprising ways, explains Tanya Miller, head of the Uniforms department of Virgin Atlantic, in this video.

Miller, originally trained as a pattern cutter, calls herself 'a real geek when it comes to a sewing machine'. When the latest uniform range was launched with Vivienne Westwood, "it was of huge importance that we looked at the sustainability of our garments. All of our suiting is made 25% recycled plastics with a nanotechnology fabric in the lady skirt. It creates a barrier that if any liquids are spill on their garments, coffee, tea wine that it will just roll off of the skirt like water does off of an umbrella. This also helps the garments to last longer and look better", Tanya explains.

In the Virgin Atlantic uniform store, the employees take care of the uniforms of over 9.000 colleagues. Over here, sustainability is in the details. Tanya: "One of the duties of the team is to assess each piece of returned uniform. If we can reuse them, we will send them to the dry cleaners to go in our pre love stock. Or if there's not much life left in them, they will go to our recycling center. The buttons are removed for reuse."