Behind the Glamour
The Heated Debate of Dealing with Luxury’s Unsold Garment Stock
When we think of luxury fashion, the words Expensive, Limited, Coveted might spring to mind, along with its eye-watering price point that also reflects its creativity, craftsmanship and design ingenuity.
But behind this alluring imagination, the reality is that despite expert management and lean operations, luxury fashion leaves behind a swathe of complex-to-handle, excess unsold garment stock. Not only is unsold garment stock a huge environmental cost - clocked up by negative environmental impacts generated throughout production - but unsold stock also leaves a financial cost to businesses. Recent reports suggest that the biggest luxury fashion players may well be sitting on billions of dollars’ worth of excess inventory. ¹
Image Source: shrinkthatfootprint.com
So why the heated debate over unsold garment stock?
Dealing with unsold garments is a nightmare for fashion brands and for recyclers alike. Think highly sensitive and valuable Intellectual Property, like distinctive prints, logos and the brands’ designs themselves. Think multiple components and materials, like fabrics, trims, linings, metals and plastic.
And because no brands want to see their unsold garments flooding secondary markets at best, landfills at worst, to date, the easiest way to deal with unsold stock has, by and large, been to incinerate.
But the tides are turning on incineration - and smarter ways to deal with excess garments stock are now called for.
Luxury fashion shopping is set to increase - leading to increase unsold garment stock
Let’s state the obvious. People are going to continue buying luxury fashion. We see that in the data, which suggests that luxury fashion revenue is set to increase. This increased expenditure on luxury fashion would suggest that unsold garment stock is, sadly, here to stay too.
Image Source: Excerpt from Statista Market Insight - Luxury Fashion Worldwide
Uncertainty over unsold garment stock - leading to unknown amounts of waste
Let’s again state the obvious. The fashion industry doesn’t win prizes for transparency, so the data on clothes produced and clothes unsold remain sketchy.
If we had a crystal ball, we could answer this question. But we don’t. Given that the industry barely reports on how many new clothes it makes per year, it is wishful thinking to expect fashion brands to ‘tell-all’ about how they handle their unsold garment stock.
Source: European Environment Agency ((a) Makov et al., 2023; (b) EURATEX, 2023b; Samfunnsøkonomisk analyse AS, 2022; ADEME, 2021; Watson et al., 2020).
That said, reports suggest that the range of options to handle unsold garment stock for fashion brands operating in Europe are Recycling (6-12%); Incineration (4-82%), or landfill (1%).
Change is coming as new regulation looms - driving innovation in circular fashion system
Image source: theconversation.com
The good news for the planet, and for the circular fashion system, is that regulation banning incineration is coming, championed by the European Union’s Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles ⁴ that recommends new regulations and more stringent standards on how the fashion industry designs, produces, sells and recycles clothes. Their new raft of regulations will, amongst various upcoming policies, propose a ban on the incineration of unsold goods in an effort to help reduce textile waste and increase the life cycle and recycling of textiles. ⁵ France has already put a ban on incineration in place since 2020. ⁶
Our solutions for IP sensitive recycling of unsold garment stock
Recycling unsold garment stock is hard. Trust us, we know this. It’s labour-intensive and time-consuming and requires multiple recycling partners, from textiles, paper to plastic.
But we have the solutions. We collaborate with global leading luxury fashion brands to provide secure and trusted recycling solutions for their IP-sensitive garment excess. Our goal is to accelerate circularity and reduce obsolete textiles and unsold clothing inventory as regulations are further put into place.
Let’s stamp waste out of fashion!
Together, we're on a mission to end fashion waste by transforming unsold garment stock into high-quality, responsible products.
Want to help us rescue complex waste? Have inquiries? Reach out to us here.
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