Will Circularity Define Fashion's Future?
Fashion's sustainability issue needs solving. We examine how much of an impact circularity can and will have on fashion's future.
Achieving a more sustainable future for fashion is the industry’s biggest challenge. While passing laws and legislation - like the European Commission's supply chain-focused Digital Product Passport (DDP) - may force the most impactful change, it relies on brands doing something about it.
Previously, we discussed the gold standard for sustainability and transparency demonstrated by leading Scandi brands like ASKET and Nudie Jeans; now, we look at the brands and businesses embracing fashion’s end-life to influence and build a more circular future for the fashion industry.
The impact of production and waste
The fashion industry cannot continue to produce at its current level without significant environmental impact. As per a 2019 Business Insider report, fashion production comprises 10% of total global carbon emissions. Worse yet, 85% of textiles go to dumps each year.
Ensuring change is both meaningful and scaleable, each step of the supply chain step requires assessment. Typically, production is the most resource-intensive step; for example, the cotton required to produce a pair of jeans uses 1800 gallons of water. As a result, production tends to be the focus of many brands’ sustainability strategies, often neglecting product end-life.
Textile waste is an enormous issue. In the UK alone, Business Waste reports that textile waste totals over 200,000 tonnes per year, with each Briton responsible for an average of 1kg of textiles. Of this, 7kg of fashion waste per person goes to landfill, with less than a fifth of used clothing being recycled. To put these numbers into perspective, more than two tonnes of clothing are purchased every minute in the UK—this is (clearly) not sustainable.
The strategy required to reduce these figures is multi-faceted, however, focusing on product end-life specifically, through circularity and regenerative fashion is key as it is good for the triple bottom line: the planet, people, and profit.
Vintage & preloved's acceleration.
Vintage and pre-loved market channels – physical and digital – play a significant role in fashion’s bid to embrace product end-life and build a circular future. Pre-loved clothing channels, such as charity and vintage shops, have been everpresent in the market; however, they’ve seen a significant upward trend in the past four years.
A report from online consignment and thrift store ThredUp highlights a weight increase in demand, with the global secondhand market growing 28% from $138 billion to $177 billion between 2021 and 2022. Further estimates expect secondhand apparel to account for 10% of the apparel market by 2024, while surging at three times the overall global apparel market’s growth up to 2027
Several contributing factors are at play concerning the growth of the secondhand clothing market; one of the most important being consumer attitudes, which data shows is being led by Gen Z. The power of nostalgia – which we recently evaluated – cannot be overlooked.
Through the nostalgia-led dominance of 90s and Y2k (early 2000s) trends across the fashion industry, circular fashion, through vintage and pre-loved, is on the receiving end of a significant boost.
According to a 2023 survey, over half of Gen Z shoppers in the United States purchased secondhand items as a more affordable alternative to designer products, while about a third went to find vintage items. Furthermore, 77% of Gen Z attributed their decision-making to environmental concerns, wanting their choices to reduce waste.
As a digitally native generation, Gen Z has been at the forefront of the secondhand market’s online migration. Where eBay was once the premier secondhand marketplace, apparel-first platforms like Vinted, Depop, Grailed, and Vestiaire Collective have experienced massive growth at the hands of these shifting consumer attitudes; Depop alone has 21 million registered users, with 90% of active users under the age of 26.
Given the data presented, it’s clear that brands should tap into the forward-thinking attitude of Gen Z (and Gen Alpha) when building circularity strategies.
Platforms like Vinted and Depop have incentivised users to grow their profiles in the same way they would their social media, turning their digital shop fronts into full-time businesses. The opportunity to build revenue has been fundamental to these platforms’ success and positively impacted the perception of the secondhand market.
Circular partnerships.
Secondhand market platforms hold huge power, with each key player boasting 20million+ strong user bases. Leveraging their market influence, they’ve partnered with brands to encourage and embrace circularity within the New Luxury sphere, affording consumers access to designer and luxury products.
Earlier this month, Depop partnered with Hypebeast on its Hypebeast Flea New York event, spotlighting six of the platform’s sellers alongside a market of independent vendors.
Vestiaire Collective, which has become the go-to for pre-loved New Luxury and vintage designer clothing has taken collaboration a step further through Resale as a Service (Raas).
Launched in 2021, Raas has enabled brands and retailers to offer resale to their customers. Items are collected through a digital platform, and customers are rewarded with store credit, and the items are then sold on Vestiaire Collective through a dedicated page. Since launching, RaaS has seen Vestiaire partner with leading brands and platforms like Gucci, Alexander McQueen, Mulberry, and Mytheresa.
As the influence and impact of initiatives like RaaS grow, it’s expected that other brands – particularly those operating within the New Luxury sphere given its tenants of eco-consciousness and social responsibility – will follow suit, embracing circularity as a part of their business models. The uptake of circular models is already showing signs of growth, with projections predicting they’ll grow from 3.5% of today’s global fashion market to 23% by 2030.
Utilising deadstock and overstock.
As many as 40% of clothes made each year – 60bn garments – are not sold. While a damaging portion of this ends up as waste, some brands are utilising deadstock and overstock to boost circularity; here’s how.
(di)vision: Copenhagen-based (di)vision has established itself as a circular production leader by utilising deadstock and overstock. Season-to-season, it operates under the ethos of “creating from what already is,” delivering collections produced from deadstock, recycled fabrics, vintage products, and by upcycling overstock.
It’s made significant strides in altering the perception of such production methods, becoming one of Fashion Week’s most anticipated and exciting brands.
HEAT: Since launching in 2019, HEAT has been solving one of fashion’s biggest issues in overstock. Through a mystery box, direct-to-consumer model. HEAT connects consumers with desirable products from New Luxury brands, established and emerging.
Operating as somewhat of a discovery platform, introducing brands to new consumer groups, HEAT utilises its brand relationships to repackage overstock designer apparel, shoes, and accessories through its luxury mystery boxes.
Through its unique business model, HEAT has evolved, with exclusive designer drops, led by thoughtful merchandising and storytelling to transform overstock into something experiential for consumers.
As an innovator and leader in the space, the platform has carved a new lane of possibility, showing the rest of the fashion industry what’s possible. It’s a win-win for both brand and consumer: brands receive a liquidation and discovery channel, while the consumer can discover new and emerging brands while purchasing high-end goods for a fraction of the price.
The sharing economy: don’t buy it, rent it.
Consumer demand for designer and luxury clothing remains high, but at large, prices have increased; in turn, consumer accessibility has decreased.
The gap between demand and accessibility has led to the rise of fashion rental platforms which, like the secondhand market platforms mentioned above, also provide an opportunity for retailers and independent users to generate revenue. For independent users, unworn or pre-loved items are offered a second life, they can (eventually) pay for themselves through rentals, discourage waste, and significantly extend the life cycle of their wardrobes.
Examples of platforms that have embraced circularity through rentals include:
By Rotation: A free app that allows users (lenders) to list their wardrobes similarly to resale platforms like Depop. Once the rental price is set, app users can send rental requests. Using an internal messaging service, lenders and users can communicate, with a feedback system for peace of mind.
Selfridges Rental: Selfridge’s luxury rental service operates similarly to its retail. Consumers can browse designer clothing, accessories, and exclusive pieces, select a rental period, and place an order.
Rent the Runway: Catering primarily to women, Rent the Runway offers a selection of high-end and luxury designer apparel and accessories. Short-term rentals are available as a standard, but they also offer a membership subscription service that gives users access to over 750 brands, personal styling via text, and dry cleaning.
There “where” of it all.
DDP will change how brands operate, whether they like it or not. Although several brands have already fully immersed themselves in and committed to fully transparent supply chains; for those that haven’t, preparation is essential, and traceability is crucial.
To calculate, understand, and communicate a product's true (human, environmental, and financial) cost, it’s essential that each supply chain process can be traced to its source. In production and manufacture: where does the cotton come from? buttons? labels? zippers? where was it dyed? where was the garment assembled?
While the industry has its success stories, it’s lagging. That’s where companies and solutions like EON come in.
EON allows brands and retailers to create a cloud-based digital profile for every item and capture events, such as being resold, over their lifecycles.
In turn, this provides consumers and partners with trusted, valuable data – such as certifications and material information – about their products. End-to-end traceability and real-time insights, as offered by EON, is an important step forward in ensuring every product produced in the fashion industry is accounted for.
This data capture also makes recycling and reselling scalable and transparent through the automatisation of product data which, in turn, provides consumers and retail partners alike the certainty that products are authentic.
How can brands embrace circularity?
Actionable change across sustainability and transparency that will redefine the future of fashion requires brands to undergo internal cultural change; in short, they need to start giving a f*ck. For their actions and strategies to be meaningful, their supply chain logistics need to be unpicked in full—end-life and circularity being a crucial piece of the puzzle.
Brands across the board are making impactful changes, but the industry at large needs to wake up and do more; fast. Here are some lessons that can be learnt from the brands that are doing circularity right.
Full transparency and traceability: This is where Scandinavian brands have proven themselves as industry-wide sustainability leaders. Full transparency affords consumers the knowledge and resources to make informed purchases, highlighting the true human and environmental cost of design, production, and supply.
Lessons can be gleaned from:
ASKET’s Impact Receipt
Reformation’s Refscale
End-life solutions: As a consumer, it’s easy to feel lost where end-life solutions are concerned. Prioritising the provision of solutions, schemes, and incentives is imperative at brand level. Not only does it encourage brand loyalty from consumers, but internally, it provides sustainability solutions for product-associated issues such as overstock and waste management.
Re-use: Giving products a second life through re-use initiatives, such as trade-ins and buybacks, bolsters the longevity of brand-to-consumer relationships while providing an additional revenue stream by reselling pre-sold and pre-loved products.
Repair: Offer consumers repair services. This encourages buyers to commit to a purchase long-term.
Recycle: Cut out the middle man and kick confusion to the curb; provide consumers with recycling options, incentivised through vouchers, discounts, or loyalty programs.
Secondary market integration: Through Vestiaire Collective’s RaaS, renowned high-end brands like Gucci have successfully integrated secondary markets into their supply chain, embracing circularity and utilising innovative tools to tap into consumer behaviours and trends.
Moving forward, more brands should – emerging and established – connect and collaborate with secondary markets, integrating the tools available to offer pre-loved, vintage, and archival pieces to consumers.
Similarly, they can tap into future-forward platforms like HEAT to solve their overstock issues, introduce themselves to wider market demographics, and align themselves with a new and innovative buying experience.
Embrace technology: For the fashion industry to move forward, it needs to innovate. Embracing technological advancements, such as the data solutions provided by EON, Unspun’s 3D weaving machines, Cetia’s AI-enabled recycling preparation machines, or SuperCircle’s collecting and sorting solutions, is imperative to making sustainability work, and circularity meaningful.