A new zero-emission Mobile Circular Fashion Lab is helping people in Los Angeles extend the life of their clothes, saving customers money and reducing waste and emissions. Circular Fashion LA is a Los Angeles-based company that offers clothing repair, alteration, and dying services for affordable prices, keeping clothes in people’s closets and out of landfills.
Thanks to a $90,000 California Climate Investments grant from the California Air Resources Board’s Innovative Small E-Fleet Pilot Project (ISEF), Circular Fashion LA was able to purchase a zero-emission truck for its mobile lab. Now the mobile lab can travel across the city, reducing textile waste and emissions through the services it offers, without producing emissions itself. The vehicle, which was delivered in September 2025, includes a fully equipped workshop that allows the Circular Fashion LA team to travel across Los Angeles teaching community members how they can extend the life of their clothing.
The day of delivery with: Karri Ann Frerichs (Founder, CFLA), Preston Hayes (Founder, AFLC), Jakson Alvarez (Co-founder, Evolectric), Matt Petersen (CEO, LACI).
“CalRecycle identified textiles as the fifth most common material in California’s single-family waste stream,” explained Karri Ann Frerichs, Founder of Circular Fashion LA. “Circular Fashion LA is working to give families and communities a better way to extend the life of their clothes and keep the materials in use and out of landfills.”
Circular Fashion LA partnered with electric vehicle (EV) technology company Evoletric on the project. The two were connected through the Los Angeles Clean Tech Incubator who noticed the businesses’ shared sustainability goals. Evoletric’s CircularEV™ platform converts existing commercial trucks into fully electric, smart-connected vehicles. Their approach focuses on making existing commercial vehicles electric, helping to reduce operating costs, extending the vehicle’s life, and making zero-emission technology more accessible to small fleets.
“With this vehicle, we can expand our impact across Los Angeles,” said Frerichs. “Evoletric and its partners made this transition possible, showing how even small, mission-driven companies can access the tools to lead on sustainability, and now we can see the potential of scale with that major asset.” Jakson Alvarez, Co-Founder of Evoletric added that the Circular Fashion Lab shows how “smart retrofit technology and community ambition can work together to deliver real change.”
Circular Fashion LA’s Mobile Fashion Lab.
Small businesses that want to operate more sustainably are often limited by upfront technology costs. With strong partnerships, Circular Fashion LA was able to overcome these challenges and secure incentives and flexible financing. While ISEF funded the truck, the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator, the California Product Stewardship Council, and CalRecycle contributed resources for the interior build-out and operations, and the Alternative Fuel Leasing Company provided financing for remaining costs. The Mobile Circular Fashion Lab demonstrates how creative vision and teamwork, paired with incentive programs like ISEF can support small businesses in making a difference in their communities.
With the California Climate Investments funding and support from partners, Circular Fashion LA is helping make sustainability stylish. “I LOVE my redyed sweatshirt,” raved one customer. “[It] takes it to a whole other level that almost actually makes me grateful for accidentally staining it in the first place! I can’t wait to come back to Circular Fashion LA for all my future needs.”