Fashion Industr y Waste
According to McKinsey & Company’s State of Fashion 2021, less than 1% of products are recycled into new garments. Every year, unused fabric costs the fashion industry about $120 billion, according to online deadstock marketplace Queen of Raw (Kent, Sarah. 2021). The pandemic resulted in a reduction of sales which has escalated this problem, with brands sitting on unsold stock and factories having rolls of unused fabric meant for orders which were cancelled. Although a global problem, in 2020 the UK was named as the fourth largest textile waste producer in Europe, on average producing 206,456 tonnes of textile waste in a year (Moore, Darrel. 2020). With such an excess of waste, it begs the question, why create something new when there is already so much product available to use? In the past, unsold product would have been thrown away or burned, particularly by luxury brands in an attempt to preserve brand value. This practice has now been banned in France by law (Chan, Emily. 2020), and a huge consumer uproar led to multiple brands pledging to be more mindful and ethical when dealing with waste product. Luxury British brand Burberry has made positive strides in the area, donating unsold clothing to those in need for job interviews, and designers are donating unused fabric to fashion schools or reselling it themselves. 18
