Vestiaire Collective has banned fast fashion brands from its platform, starting this month. Coinciding with the new, Vestiaire Collective is partnering with The Or Foundation to fight fashion waste, a strategic move in Vestiaire Collective’s long-term mission to change the way people consume fashion and drive collective change towards a circular fashion economy.
SEE ALSO: A big step towards sustainability – EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW with Redress Design Award Founder
By banning fast fashion brands from the platform, the company has reinforced the notion of buying quality over quantity and encourages consumers to invest in craftsmanship at better prices.
“Fast fashion has no value, and even less in resale,” said Dounia Wone, Vestiaire Collective’s Chief Impact Officer.
“We’ve taken this step because we don’t want to be complicit in this industry which has a tremendous environmental and social impact. The current system encourages overproduction and overconsumption of low quality items and generates huge amounts of fashion waste.”
This action is the latest step in Vestiaire Collective’s mission to transform the fashion industry. As part of a three-year plan, the resale platform will enlist the expertise of an external agency to create a robust set of fast fashion criteria including low product quality, working conditions and carbon footprint. All brands that fit the criteria will subsequently be banned from the site.
Source: Vestiaire Collective
In tandem with this announcement, Vestiaire Collective is undertaking further actions against fashion waste, by raising awareness and lobbying for change. In October 2022, The Or hosted a team of Vestiaire Collective employees on an exploratory trip to Kantamanto in Ghana, the largest reuse and upcycling economy in the world. Roughly 15 million garments flow through the Kantamanto market every week. Of what is unbaled, 40 percent of items leave the market as waste, causing environmental devastation and plunging second-hand retailers into debt. This trip underlined the importance of taking immediate, radical action around fast fashion.
To ensure that this ban doesn’t push the responsibility of managing waste onto Kantamanto, Vestiaire Collective is committed to finding and promoting practical solutions for the fast fashion items that its members already have. This includes wearing, repairing, recycling, upcycling, and constructive donation strategies.
SEE ALSO: Is sustainability the new sexy? EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW with founder of Single Use Ain’t Sexy
This November, Vestiaire Collective hosted a delegation of retailers, campaigners and innovators from The Or Foundation in Paris. Members met with leading industry figures, policymakers and organizations within the circular fashion movement, while lobbying for change at a governmental level. The aim was not only to raise awareness, but to support incoming legislation around Extended Producer Responsibility.