Australia’s fashion brands have come under the spotlight in this years Ethical Fashion Report, By Baptist World Aid. With major retailers like Myers scoring poorly with a D rating overall and retail re-opening in Melbourne this week we wanted to further explore the biggest trend in fashion sustainability - and hopefully the next normal.
The Rise Of The Circular Fashion
Gen Z has changed the expectations of what fashion “sustainability” means. To them its end-to-end brands.
It’s the brands that can show the investment into our circular economy of production and consumption. Empowering sharing, leasing, reusing, repairing amongst their customer base, resulting in extending the use of existing products for as long as possible.
We see this behaviour validated in research done by Mckinsey & Company 2020 Fashion Survey
65 percent of respondents are planning to purchase more durable fashion items, and 71 percent are planning to keep the items they already have for longer (Exhibit 8). Additionally, 57 percent of respondents are willing to repair items to prolong usage.
This is something we have explored before as big brands and smaller creative players make a splash in the space but there continue to be new entrants approaching it from different angles.
A brand new partnership that lets you wear now, re-sell later.
Customers would shop as normal and there’s an option to add AIRROBE to checkout. That item is than added to your circular wardrobe where you can re-sell, rent or recycle it all live on the AIRROBE marketplace.
Hurr, one of UK’s largest fashion rental retailer has partnered with Depop to close the loop on fashion waste.
When an item on Hurr is no longer able to cycle through their rental period, that product will be available for purchase on the Depop marketplace, with new drops happening every Monday.
Depop has also recently announced that they will be partnering with a number of British charities to help with resale. Through its new Charity Seller Programme, Depop aims to provide a variety of UK-based charities with the tools, resources, exclusive offers and personalised support to aid them in building their online presence and e-commerce channels. The implementation of the programme follows the growth of charity shop listings on the app, with an increase of nearly 600 percent since March 2020, according to a company press release.
But try not to just see this new economy as a reason to buy more!...
One new film also cautions the public to recognise the potential for greenwashing within conversations from big brands around circular fashion.
Hien Pham
