How Has Sustainability In Fashion Changed Over The Past Decade?

Estimated reading time: 12 minutes

Can the fashion industry ever be sustainable? As conversations about conscious consumerism proliferate and further statistics reveal the damaging effects of the industry, this question is increasingly poignant. It was in 1966 when the american Scott Paper Company developed a mass-produced paper dress as a marketing stunt that our collective obsession with quick, cheap and throwaway fashion began to develop. Now, 11 million items of clothing are sent to landfill every week in the UK whilst global textile production emits 1.2 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases annually. This is more than international flights and maritime shipping combined. As the worth of the fashion industry is also equivalent to the combined GDP of the world’s 126 poorest countries, a crisis point has been reached. Over the past decade there has been a slow realisation among consumers and companies that we were heading towards a tipping point. Here the revolution of consumer habits in the past decade will be analysed together with the growing number of company sustainability pledges, before discussing the inevitable difficulties that the fashion industry faces in its bid to become sustainable. Hopefully though, as we turn to the trends set to dominate the next decade, the industry might be ready for life-altering change for all of us.

From 2000 to 2014 the amount of clothing that we own has increased by 60% to the point at which an average 26.7 kg of clothes are purchased per capita per year in the UK. This has been a staggeringly quick inflation of the size of our wardrobes. It is unsurprising then that it is only in the past year or so that a discussion about this over-consumption of textiles has become mainstream. In 2019, keyword searches for sustainable fashion have increased by 75% with an average of 27,000 searches every month. According to Lyst, searches for specific materials also rose: 102% for econyl, 52% for organic cotton, 130% for reprieve and 42% for tencel. This suggests that collective consumer behaviour is migrating towards more environmentally-conscious production. There, however, remains a substantial addiction to fast fashion. The popularity of reality television in particular for example highlights how significant the prospect of cheap clothing remains. Last year, for instance, fast fashion online retailer Missguided promoted a £1 bikini. Billed to be the bikini that “won’t break your bank balance but might break the internet” this marketing stunt was an unarguable success as the bikini was selling out in every size – from 4 to 24 – within 45 minutes of each restock. As such, the difficulty arises in aligning what customers do and what customers say. Evidently, a look back over the last decade highlights how ingrained cheap clothing has become within our society and the substantial shift that is required for us to no longer be drawn in by an inevitable ‘bargain’. The increased interest in materials and brand ethos nevertheless appears to be seeping into the public consciousness and consequently, consumers are expecting brands to take a firm stand on sustainability.

In July 2018 Burberry received a large backlash when it was revealed that they burnt stock. In fact, in 2017, the luxury brand destroyed £28.6 million worth of unsold clothes, accessories and perfume in the hope of remaining an exclusive purchase for their customers. Nonetheless, this revealed “a dirty secret of the fashion industry” according to Lu Yen Roloff of Greenpeace and can be cited as the beginning of the rise of company commitments. Burberry itself, for example, now has a Responsibility Agenda featured on their website which separates goals for 2022 into three sustainable areas: communities, company and product. With this, companies’ practices have certainly come under greater scrutiny in the final years of the past decade. Companies are now compelled to be transparent about their supply chain and honest in their approach if they are to remain relevant within the marketplace. The Global Fashion Agenda has organised the annual Copenhagen Fashion Summit since 2009 and is at the vanguard of the bold and urgent action on sustainability required within the industry. Its importance is clearly advancing as it engaged 12.5% of the global fashion market with its 2020 Circular Fashion System Commitment to accelerate the industry’s transition to a circular fashion system.

It is unsurprising then that brands such as Veja, Everlane and Madewell that pride themselves on their sustainable practices are becoming increasingly successful within the fashion industry. Madewell is the perfect case study. It was launched by J.Crew in 2006 as a separate brand and is known for its denim-based wardrobe. As Lyst states that sustainable denim is one of the most wanted product categories by consumers, it is reasonable that their use of tencel in soft-to-the-touch jeans and jean recycling initiatives have been a significant factor in the brand’s success. However, Madewell also runs other ethical programs that are inline with the brand ethos such as the Hometown Heroes program, which was originally established in 2010 as a way to offer independent designers a larger platform for the U.S. market. This clear brand ethos meant that, in 2018, Madewell’s revenues grew by 32% to $614 million, according to a filing. This means that the brand is profitable, recording a net income of $60 million, up from $45 million in 2017 and $12 million in 2016. Libby Wadle, previous Madewell president and it’s first CEO, claims that

In fact, Madewell is now arguably performing better than its previous parent brand J.Crew. This appears to be a testament to the company’s commitment to sustainability as it modernises its practices to remain in line with the growing consumer awareness for conscious production and environmentally-friendly fabric choices.

A company similar in its commitment to conscious consumerism is San Francisco-based clothing brand Everlane, but even companies such as these are being investigated for less than sustainable or humane production. In December, customer-service workers at the brand announced that they are unionising due to low pay, nonexistent benefits, unpredictable scheduling, and the company’s apparent desire to prevent them from organizing. “Retail ambassadors” in New York have also claimed similar experiences. There is, after all, a single fundamental problem when discussing sustainability and the fashion industry – profit.  Fast fashion has risen at the speed that it has not only because consumers have desired cheaper clothing, but for years brands have been deliberately creating a frenzy around poor quality clothing. Clothing that has been produced in at best difficult, and at worst unsafe, environments where minimum wage is low in order to make vast profits on the clothing we consume. The aim at the centre of the fashion industry is the idea of newness – constant production of new items.

This poses a momentous problem as sustainability becomes increasingly important to the consumer. To be truly sustainable the whole of the supply chain needs to be considered. Helen Crowley, head of sustainable sourcing at Kering, in fact argues that “none of this is going to work until there’s a recognition that supply chains are broken.” At the moment, sustainability risks remaining a powerful marketing buzzword as there is not a globally agreed definition of sustainability when it comes to fashion. When runway shows such as Gabriela Hearst’s SS20 collection, for example, claim to be ‘carbon neutral’ – an act of calculating your carbon emissions and attempting to balance them out generally by donating to charities which plant new trees – this is inevitably difficult to verify. In fact, it seems to be a way of limiting guilt rather than reducing harm. Indeed it appears to be a PR counter to the fact that the fashion industry is responsible for “around 10% of all global greenhouse gas emissions,” according to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. In essence, it constitutes very little notable change in habits. This is but the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the reality of a sustainable fashion industry. Whilst burning clothes can be neatly understood as wrong, topics such as these are more complicated. Sustainability, therefore, risks becoming a buzzword, as a commitment for companies is easy to make but a substantially harder case to act upon with any remarkable success in the long run.

In the 2020s then it appears imperative that both businesses and consumers act in a more conscious way. A few trends for the coming decade now seem to be appearing. Firstly, a general consensus on not using damaging materials and chemicals is emerging. More generally the use of plastic is becoming increasingly limited which is sure to permeate the fashion industry as well. Vogue, for instance, published an article on why vegan leather aka pleather was environmentally damaging. This is also linked to the chemicals required in the process which were acknowledged to be hazardous. In a Maxwell-Scott article, we explored why our full grain vegetable-tanned leather was a more sustainable choice than this fabric which is most certainly capitalising upon another buzzword for 2020: vegan. Alongside this deeper understanding of the true sustainability of materials, the luxury second hand market is continually growing in popularity. Sites such as Vestiaire Collective and Cudoni offer consumers a new way of obtaining their favourite designer pieces. This is big business as the second hand luxury market was estimated to be worth around $24 billion in 2018 which is around 7% of the $365 billion personal luxury goods market. As customers become more interested in finding new, more sustainable ways to shop this is sure to increase as “the secondhand market is growing four times faster than the primary market and is projected to double in value over the next five years.” Lastly, the final key trend is simply a concerted effort to consume less. At the moment, we keep clothes for half of the time that we did just 15 years ago. This means that low buy movements, seamstress services and rentals are all set to be crucial in the coming years.

The rental market is particularly interesting. A $1 billion market, it is projected to generate $1.9 billion in revenue by the end of 2023, according to Lyst. HURR Collective is a particularly apt example of a new company harnessing this trend. It was dubbed by Vanity Fair in November to be the “Airbnb of fashion” and thus acts as a peer-to-peer renting system where a member can request to rent an item from another member’s wardrobe for a set number of days. The appetite for this kind of model within the fashion industry was quickly evident as over 10,000 people signed up to the HURR waiting list in the first months of its launch. As of this month, the HURR Collective Instagram page has 21.3k followers and regularly features key fashion bloggers sporting their rented attire. The co-founder and CEO of HURR, Victoria Prew argues that:

This is why she set out to create a disruptive system that capitalised upon this sharing economy that is captivating a growing percentage of the population. Simply, she believed that “there must be a better way to do fashion, because this is madness.” The initial success of HURR is an early indicator that the fashion industry was ready for a change and that we as consumers were searching for more options than we have previously enjoyed over the past decade. Rentals after all make sense to the consumer, no longer will we have to purchase clothes for a single event – a wedding, holiday or even an interview – instead we will have access to the wardrobes of others. In the way that fashion can remain fresh and ‘new’ for the consumer without its being throwaway. 

At Maxwell-Scott, a focus on the very best materials and production techniques have always been at the core of what we do. In fact our 25 year warranty is testament to the longevity of our products. Each briefcase, handbag, luggage bag and accessory is handcrafted in the heart of Italy by master craftsmen from the finest full grain, vegetable-tanned leather. It is with this that we are proud members of the Consorzio Vera Pelle Italiana Conciata Al Vegetale (The Genuine Italian Vegetable-Tanned Leather Consortium) which represents the heritage leather industry in Tuscany where artisans have perfected the way in which to treat leather with the most care without the use of chemicals. And whilst Vogue Business has only this month launched a weekly sustainability newsletter “filled with future-focused global sustainability coverage” to help readers gain insight into the vanguard of “innovations, materials, investments and environmental breakthroughs,” we believe that sustainable consumerism has always been a distinct possibility with the right mindset. As consumers begin to value sustainable materials and heritage artisan production, brands must revolutionise practices by working ethically throughout the entire supply chain to cater to this growing demand. Though the fashion industry may remain driven by profit, consumers will in the end decide where to buy, which brands to support. Over time, this may also include a more substantial focus on the secondhand and rental market. As we turn to the truths of global warming, frankly such patterns of consuming are now necessary.