Marks & Spencer (M&S) has today (4 October) unveiled a ‘limited edition ladies' coat’, the first item produced by M&S as a result of its ‘Shwopping’ campaign.

Launching in selected stores and online on 10 October, the ‘Shwop Coat’, priced at £89, is composed entirely of ‘shwopped wool’ made from garments donated by customers to M&S stores or via its charity partner, Oxfam. According to M&S, the same jacket made from virgin wool would cost £178 (double the amount).

First announced in April 2012, ‘Shwopping’, an initiative that encourages shoppers to donate one item of clothing for every piece that they buy, is part of M&S’s Plan A campaign, which aims to make the company ‘the world’s most sustainable major retailer by 2015’ and saw the high-street chain claim the title of the UK's first retailer to become carbon neutral earlier this year.

All clothes brought in to stores to be ‘shwopped’ are donated to Oxfam, but those deemed unsuitable for resale are shipped to Italy to be reduced to fibre form, cleaned and made into new fabric, which is then bought back by M&S.

The ‘Shwop Coat’ is the newest item to ‘showcase the fashion possibilities’ of the retailer’s sustainable fashion campaign and follows on from the launch of the ‘world’s most sustainable suit’.

“The Shwop Coat marks a huge step forwards for creating a sustainable future for fashion”, says M&S Plan A expert, Mark Sumner.

“Our Shwop Coat is the perfect example of what is possible from Shwopping, and we really hope it will lead to more of our customers Shwopping so we can make even more garments made from their old and unwanted clothes.”

Over half a million garments were shwopped in the first six weeks of the initiative starting. To date, over one million items of clothing have been donated to M&S.