In Animal Crossing, I exchanged clothes for an exclusive Animal Crossing outfit. This happened to him as part of an initiative in which you can also participate.

At a time when a lot of things revolve around the pandemic, other things are already going under. Issues such as sustainability should not be included, which is why I took a closer look at an Animal Crossing initiative.

The is about sustainable fashion in the real world, but Animal Crossing: New Horizons serves as a platform to spread the message. In the game, I was able to travel to the specially designed island, digitally recycle clothes and pick up an exclusive game outfit - and you can!

Clothes looopen with Game of Thrones star Maisie Williams

So to get an idea of the initiative, I travelled to New Horizons on the so-called Looop Island. There Maisie Williams greeted me personally with her Animal Crossing character. The actress, known as Game of Thrones' Arya Stark, is a sustainability ambassador for textile company HM. In this function, she took me across the island and explained the recycling with the Looop machine to get the Looop outfit.

The Looop machine is a clothing recycling station in real as well as in Animal Crossing, which enables a circular process (hence "loop") for sustainable fashion: recycling, reprocessing, reuse. In the game, however, this only happens symbolically by a replica of the real model. The process is simulated, which I tried out together with Maisie.

Recycle play clothes and pick up the looop outfit

If you want to digitally recycle Animal Crossing garments to get the Looop outfit, you can do so until April 20. This is how long the island is open and can be visited if you have a dodo code.

How do I get access to Looop Island? You can get the dodo code you need for a trip to the island via Twitter. Write a private message to the official account @looop and you will be invited with a code:

How to recycle your clothes with the digital Looop machine:

Once you have arrived on Looop Island, keep to your right. There you can see the virtual Looop machine next to the tailorshop.

Put old in-game clothes there.

Enter the tailorshop. On the wall are outfits, including looop garments. Select them and save the design.

Now you can find and create the outfit in the Designs app under Professional Designs on the in-game smartphone.

Caution: To visit other islands by Dodo Code, A Nintendo Switch Online membership is required.

Discover Looop Island

However, the island is not only used to convert game outfits on the Looop machine. You can also explore the island freely as usual. For example, you can leave a message on the blackboard or visit Maisie's house, as I did:

Meet Maisie: I was invited to the tour with Maisie, but you can also meet the GoT star in the form of her Animal Crossing character. Maisie, together with Pascal Brun, HM's Global Sustainability Manager, keeps floating around the island with ACNH bells. So if you're lucky you can say hello "personally."

For more sustainable fashion in real life

As mentioned earlier, this Animal Crossing action is part of a sustainability program that Maisie Williams is campaigning for as an ambassador in 2021. The goal is to collect and recycle clothes to make the fashion of the future sustainable, as the actress explained:

"The long-term goal is to use 100 percent recycled and other sustainably grown resources for textiles of all brands of the HM Group by 2030. It is time to act and create more sustainable production cycles in fashion to protect our planet and the next generation."

For this reason, the Looop machine was specially developed, which crushes old clothing and converts them into reusable textile fibres. The cooperation with Animal Crossing came about because Maisie herself is an enthusiastic player of the popular life simulation and can thus spread the message further.

Become active yourself: If you want to support sustainable fashion in real life, you can do so at any time. On the HM website you will find more information about the real Looop machine and how to recycle your clothes to do something good.