To put an end to fast-fashion

“Don't buy just for the fun of it. I think people shouldn't invest in fashion, but invest in the world.” Riddle: who said these words? An environmental activist? An anti-capitalist? No. Against all expectations, these are words spoken in September 2013 by one of the most important actresses of contemporary fashion, the British designer Vivienne Westwood.

In a context of multiplication of seasons, frantic production, increase in the number of clothes thrown away each year and while the fashion industry has an enormous ecological impact on the planet, the designer, known for her political and ecological commitments, takes the word against his own system. At the antipodes of a discourse of a large, ultra‑controlled fashion house, focused on turnover at any price, Vivienne Westwood begs the buyer – and potential client of her brand – not to buy any more.

Productivity at all costs is in question

This statement betrays an increasingly avowed lack of love for the fashion industry. Since 2013 and the collapse on textile workers of Rana Plaza in Dacca, the capital of Bangladesh, killing nearly 1,200 people, productivity at all costs has been called into question.

Fast-fashion, which appeared in the 1990s, always produces more, always cheaper. Every day brings its share of textile scandals: messages sewn into the linings of clothes, little words slipped into the pockets of coats, workers on strike to claim their unpaid wages for months.

If the fast-fashion industry is going through a difficult period – in France, the Pimkie chain is in difficulty, as is the Vivarte group (La Halle, Chevignon) which recently sold André, Kookaï and Naf Naf – the shops continue to multiply: according to the Bloomberg site, the number of H&M stores in the United States increased from 200 to more than 500 between 2010 and 2017.

However, in 2017, the H&M group recorded a drop in its net profit of 13%, the largest in the last six years. Between 1990 and 2016, the share of household fashion consumption was almost halved, dropping from 6.8% of total expenditure to 3.8% (source Insee).

Fertile ground for a new way of thinking about fashion

Is awareness on the move? The disasters of fast-fashion are fertile ground for the birth of a new way of thinking about fashion. In 2014, Li Edelkoort published Anti-Fashion: a Manifesto for the Next Decade, a manifesto pointing out the failures of the fashion industry, as much on an ecological, societal and creative level as on a human level: “Fashion is dead. Long live the garment.”

The first speech within a locked industry, this manifesto paves the way for numerous initiatives: in Marseille, Stéphanie Calvino extends her remarks with Anti-Fashion, a discussion group on fashion problems, centered on the return to pleasure and sharing.

“Too often, we buy a piece of clothing, we put it at home in our bag, then we forget about it, says Stéphanie. I campaign for the return of wonder in fashion, for the purchase of pleasure.” She defines the title of her collective, conceived in collaboration with LiEdelkoort, as a “cry of love” for fashion: “We are not against fashion: with Anti-Fashion, we analyze and discuss societal consumer trends. We are not for revolution, but for evolution", explains Stéphanie, who sets up conferences between different fashion players, allowing links to be forged and collaborations to be established between the worlds - for example, presenting a small hemp producer to designers keen to turn to responsible raw materials.

The collective is organizing its third meeting in Marseille next June. Stéphanie hopes it will be as moving as the first: “Everyone cried at the end of this first meeting, she remembers. We hide a lot of things in fashion: it's an industry of appearances. Opening the discussion and confidences was experienced by many as a real liberation.”

Exposing the reality of this rotten industry from the inside

Because the primary desire of these initiatives is transparency: to put an end to the opacity of large groups and reveal the reality of this rotten industry from the inside, by celebrating its shadow actors. The Fashion Revolution collective strikes a blow with its campaign Who Made My Clothes? in April 2015, marking the anniversary of the fall of the Rana Plaza: in the 2017 edition, more than 2 million consumers around the world took a photo of their clothing label and sent it to the brand asking: “Who made my garment?” Social networks are thus inundated with questions and answers about the little hands that make clothes: brands, who want to take care of their image, are forced to play the game.

Digital has completely reshuffled the cards. New brands have based themselves on this refusal of opacity, responding to the need for concrete information from potential customers: “As the customer is directly with us, he has different requirements, explains Uriel Karsenti, founder of the men's fashion brand Maison Standards, which exists mainly in the form of an e‑shop. He expects us to be able to explain the fair price.”

>> To read also: "Maison Standards, the clothing brand at fair prices" <<

The French brand, specializing in quality basics, details the exact price of its products on its website: cost of material, dyeing, cutting, transport – even revealing its margins. Thus, paying more than twenty euros for a shirt appears to be abuse.

@banditoenfuego yeah that's close to how to make a greenhouse honestly these stalls are so useful, I made the tiki… https://t.co/pTsne1Tw4t

— sigma / ender era Wed Aug 19 21:02:55 +0000 2020

“There may also be, in the idea of ​​transparency, the desire to justify its quality, continues the founder of Maison Standards. Our clothes are designed in factories that manufacture high-end brands and from which come the same pants that are sold three times more expensive on the side. It was important for us to show, whether in China, Morocco or Portugal, that our products are made with beautiful materials, by workers who have real know-how.”

Workers living thirty in a 25 square meter

In 2003, the two founders of the Veja sneaker brand visited a textile production factory in China. They meet there workers living at thirty in a 25 square meters, sleeping in bunk beds of five floors, with a hole in the center of the room serving both as a shower and a toilet.

“Once you've seen that, it's impossible for you to create a fashion brand that follows that model,” says Sébastien Kopp. Veja was born in 2004: a brand of ethical rubber sneakers and accessories that supports small producers in the Amazon, boosting local economic activity, and which entrusts their European distribution to Atelier Sans Frontières, an association for reintegration through work in France .

This March 6, Veja is launching its brand new website, exposing the manufacture of their parts down to the smallest detail: name of the producers, location of the places where each element of the basketball is produced, production contracts, chemical tests... Everything is downloadable and can be consulted on their site, pushing transparency to the maximum. The duo even had fun having their shoe model appraised by a Chinese factory: by choosing their “own” production model, they pay more than three times more than the production price in China.

Produce the most resistant part possible

It is precisely by discovering for oneself the workings of textile production that one lifts the veil on the extent of the damage. Julia Faure, co-founder of the ready-to-wear brand Loom, recalls the moment she discovered the reality of production time: “Our deadlines at Loom, while they are pre-designed products and produced in small quantities, are d at least two months, she explains. Impossible to stick to fast-fashion production cycles within the same factory: to produce in three weeks, which is the usual timeframe for large groups, it is necessary to delegate to other factories, making it almost impossible to trace the origins of the products and the people who work there.”

During her first meeting with her production plant, Julia asks the question: what is the process to follow to produce the most resistant part possible? His interlocutor is stunned: this is the first time that a brand has asked him this kind of question. Loom, which evolves within the MyLittle Paris incubator, chooses to share its guidelines with its community: their site offers complete descriptions for each product, information on production sites and personnel, and even comics. aimed at alerting the consumer to the repercussions of careless fashion purchases.

Will this transparency be enough to convince the consumer to abandon the sirens of fast-fashion for fairer fashion consumption, and therefore necessarily more expensive? “Consumers are fed up with fashion,” says Vincent Grégoire of the NellyRodi trend firm. Creators are seen as living in an ivory tower, unable to understand the street.” And what makes millennials dream is fast-fashion: this continuous stream of fashion products in boutiques, surpassing all seasonality and, sometimes, rationality.

"Bangladesh, China, Taiwan, it's far away"

Forgotten the time when you bought your winter coat the summer before: the consumer wants everything, right away, surrounding himself with “feel good products” available en masse in low-cost stores – both fashion boutiques and low-cost gadget sellers like Hema or Flying Tiger.

“Millennials are well aware that a five-euro skirt necessarily implies that a production step has not been respected, but knows that this pretty skirt will make them shine on Instagram – they don't care about the rest”, resumes Vincent Grégoire. Contrary to organic food, which directly affects our body (but still took about ten years to become more democratic), clothing is perceived as much more futile: “Clothing does not affect health. Bangladesh, China, Taiwan, it's far away. Even if we have more and more whistleblowers, like Elise Lucet's documentaries, there would have to be a nuclear disaster to change people's habits.

However, a new generation of designers remains convinced that a different fashion is possible. “I hope the big brands freak out about the arrival of small initiatives like us,” smiles Julia Faure. These initiatives are emerging little by little everywhere in France, driven by the upcycling boom, the art of recreating clothes from existing fabrics.

“I see a real generational thing”

In Paris, it is the LesRécupérables brand that reigns, carried by the former employee of the La Petite Rockette resource center, Anaïs Dautais. Alongside him is also Hopaal, a brand of 100% recycled sweaters and accessories, made in particular from cotton scraps and plastic bottles.

>> To read also: "Les Récupérables, the brand that transforms scraps of fabric into fashion pieces" <<

In Brittany, the Teorum brand transforms old diving suits into sweaters and jackets, while in Bordeaux, the Milan AV-JC brand advocates zero waste, ensuring that every scrap of fabric is reused within a silhouette. . So many initiatives aimed at educating the consumer, changing things “from below” and proposing alternatives.

Beyond the alarmist discourse, real solutions. “I see a real generational thing, resumes Julia, of Loom. We don't have the same concerns as our parents. People my age no longer want to work for Total or Amazon: the search for meaning is found in our career choices, but also in our consumer choices. I believe in change: look at our Facebook news feeds, how recycling has become commonplace, the fact that low-cost brands like Lidl now offer organic ranges… All-consumerism has had its day. But now, people are fed up.”