Vestiaire Collective Visualizes Fast-Fashion Waste Giants After Black Friday
By Mikelle Leow, 24 Nov 2023
Images via Vestiaire Collective / PR Newswire and Vestiaire Collective
Vestiaire Collective, a renowned luxury resale platform, is taking down the fabric of waste by extending its ban on fast-fashion brands to include major players like Abercrombie & Fitch, Gap, H&M, Zara, UNIQLO, Urban Outfitters, and Mango. This move is part of a three-year initiative aimed at eradicating fast fashion from its marketplace.
Timing its announcement for Black Friday, the website illustrated its decision by creating striking visuals of clothing piles in iconic locations around the world using artificial intelligence. Vestiaire Collective is backed by Kering, which owns fashion houses such as Gucci, Balenciaga, Saint Laurent, Bottega Veneta, and Alexander McQueen.
Imagining mountains of throwaway garments outside landmarks like the Empire State Building in New York City, the Eiffel Tower in Paris, Buckingham Palace in London, the Colosseum in Rome, and Marina Bay Sands in Singapore, the platform urges shoppers to “think first, buy second” and commit to buying second-hand, effectively transforming Black Friday into a “Better Friday.”
Image via Vestiaire Collective
The fashion industry churns out a staggering 100 billion garments annually, resulting in a colossal 92 million tons of textile waste. That’s enough to fill the Empire State Building, Buckingham Palace, the Eiffel Tower, the Colosseum, or four Berlin TV Towers every day, the company points out.
Image via Vestiaire Collective
The collective defines fast fashion based on a framework developed with the input of nine fashion and sustainability experts, and it considers criteria such as low prices, rapid product turnover, extensive product ranges, and aggressive marketing.
An accompanying CGI video depicts city-dwellers walking along Times Square while mounds of unwanted clothes surround them.
Image via Vestiaire Collective
Following its initial ban announcement last year, Vestiaire Collective says a remarkable 70% of affected members returned to shop for higher-quality items.
Emphasizing the importance of this move, Vestiaire Collective’s chief impact officer, Dounia Wone, states, “Fast-fashion brands contribute to excessive production and consumption, resulting in devastating social and environmental consequences in the Global South. It is our duty to act and lead the way for other industry players to join us in this movement, and together we can have an impact.”
Image via Vestiaire Collective
Image via Vestiaire Collective
[via Marketing Interactive, Vogue Business, PR Newswire, images via Vestiaire Collective / PR Newswire]
This article was crafted with assistance from an AI engine, and has been manually reviewed & edited.