The Long Game.

The Foundation

Stefano Cipriani was born in Prato, Italy — Europe's textile capital — and studied at Istituto Tecnico Industriale Tullio Buzzi before pursuing engineering at the Università degli Studi di Firenze. In 1988, he co-founded Bi.Fi. sas, his first venture in the textile sector.

From 1991 to 2004, he served as agent for Olcese SpA, one of Italy's historic linen producers. In 2004, he joined Tung Ga Linen and Cotton Ltd (Hong Kong) as European Office Manager — a role he held for two decades, managing relationships with the world's most demanding fashion brands.

The Industry Track Record

During 20 years at Tung Ga, Stefano Cipriani generated approximately USD 50 million in cumulative revenue across the European market, working directly with:

• Ralph Lauren (~USD 23M)
• Inditex (~USD 17M)
• Boden (~USD 10M)
• Marks & Spencer, Muji, Uniqlo

This was not abstract consulting. It was daily negotiation on fabric specs, quality standards, lead times, and supplier compliance — at scale, across two continents.

The Pivot to Compliance

In 2017, Stefano founded Stefano Cipriani Studio and launched Reeco® — an ecolabel and verification platform designed to address a gap he had observed firsthand: brands making sustainability claims they could not technically prove.

The insight was simple but powerful. GRS certifies in kilograms over 90-day periods. EU DPP requires per-garment declarations. No implementing regulation bridges that gap. Reeco does.

The Institutional Dimension

Today, Stefano Cipriani is the only Italian expert with a textile background participating in the CIRPASS-2 working groups of the European Commission — the technical groups defining the Digital Product Passport framework for textiles.

He serves in EWG1 (data quality and interoperability), EWG3 (verification and trust), and EWG5 (implementation and adoption), and is a registered stakeholder at JRC Unit B5, Seville.

He is also a member of Textile ETP (European Technology Platform for the Future of Textiles and Clothing) and Textile Exchange.

The IP and Innovation Record

In 2021, Stefano Cipriani was granted Chinese patent CN113529235 — a production method for pure hemp fiber fabric using Solucell® alkali-soluble COPET fiber. The patent is fully owned by Stefano Cipriani Studio, with no co-titleholders, and represents a cost innovation: production cost of USD 5.70–6.20/kg versus a market reference of USD 8.50/kg.

Three scientific indices — Durability (V1.02), Repairability (V3.1), and Waste (V1.0) — have been published on ResearchGate and Zenodo (DOI 10.5281/zenodo.19206499), with a Wikidata entity (Q138773743) created to support AI and search engine visibility.

EIC Accelerator

Reeco® was formally evaluated twice under the Horizon Europe EIC Accelerator programme (HORIZON-EIC-2025-ACCELERATOR-01). In the second evaluation (project 101306580, December 2025), independent panel members described the solution as showing "breakthrough potential" and "breakthrough nature of the innovation" — with one evaluator issuing a formal GO decision. A redress procedure is currently pending before EISMEA.