There are more and more resale / rewear sites popping up on behalf of big brands - for example H&M and Anthropologie. These claim to be closing the loop and give the impression of impressive environmental companies but it’s another ‘clever’ greenwashing campaign.
Don’t get me wrong, I am 100% for rewearing and recycling clothing and for companies to take steps on their sustainability journey, big change will take time, but there needs to be more transparency and honesty in comms.
For example, fast fashion companies such as H&M produce around 3 billion garments a year. I’d like to know in their marketing how this is being reduced - maybe for every piece of clothing they resell they reduce a line in their main store?
I’m not naive though, I know this is big profit led business and while we have a consumer led culture this will never change.
BUT what if marketing changed? Surely, it’s time to evolve from hard selling to building customer relationships where we share truths and develop together. What if we all took responsibility for changing consumer behaviour? Yes, it would dent the profit line but at some point there will be no profit because there’ll be no natural materials to create with. Responsibility needs to start.