There were days early in my fashion career where I would walk out to the back room & see the area manager cutting pieces of clothing in half with scissors because they had a minor flaw or didn’t sell.
The reason behind this? It was cheaper to destroy these clothes, rather than putting in the energy to try mend or re sell them. In most cases for fashion - profitability trumps ethics. This is something I was privy to from day one in the industry. And vowed to try help reshape.
Thankfully - there’s now a law to stop this, The Prohibition of the Destruction of Unsold Goods is now being enforced for large companies placing products on the EU market.
Forcing Brands To Think Outside Of The Design Room.
Now a priority in design rooms will be the circularity, mending capacity and durability of a garment - designing beyond just trends and aesthetics.
But will it be enough?
Or should brands also be capped at a certain number of garments produced each year? As the resell market floods and waste exports to countries ill equipped to manage them increase as a result?
I took a deep dive into this topic during the month of August and wanted to share my findings with you, you can read more on my Substack here.
If you're a brand, here are some important factors to consider when it comes to placing your next order or designing your next collection, for consumers, this is more of a celebratory post about the fact that responsibility for brands is now becoming enforced!
- Make better and make less
- Implement a second hand scheme within your business
- Affiliate with textile recyclers
- Upcycle whatever you can
- Choose fibres which will bio degrade
- Understand the effect of your garment post the consumer wearing
- Track everything, know how much you produce and how much waste you create, therefore can avoid
There's one thing which can make a huge difference for the fashion and textile industry's impact on people and planet: Taking responsibility for what we create.