• Will Americans Ever Get Sick of Cheap Junk?

    By Amanda Mull
    An American flag drowning in cardboard boxes
    Illustration by Matteo Giuseppe Pani. Source: Getty.

    In all the years I’ve spent covering American consumerism, I’ve heard one type of question from readers far more than any other: This can’t go on forever, right?

    Maybe they’d learned what happens to the huge volume of online purchases that get returned, or saw one too many questionably sourced mascaras and sunscreens hawked on TikTok Shop, or realized that the newly minted e-commerce behemoth Temu is spending many millions of dollars to urge you, quite explicitly, to shop like a billionaire. Whatever the impetus, the people asking this question tend to regard the consumer landscape with a mix of exhaustion and incredulity. The ever-expanding American closet is already swollen with cheap clothes, and our junk drawers and spare rooms and storage units already overfloweth with everything else. Americans have so much excess stuff that much of it can’t even effectively be given away. Can we—the people who have bought so much already—really keep buying more, and at a hastening clip?

    https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2024/04/americans-peak-stuff-shopping-temu-shein/678224/?gift=mZJJfvLLK2-N-97mYsXvt5j5Hty0oatfqOoAPrpRKTM&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

     

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  • Why H&M is turning away from polyester recycled from bottles

    H&M’s new deal to buy $600 million of “circular” polyester over seven years from Syre, a Swedish startup it co-founded, underlines one of fashion’s dirty secrets: Making new polyester from recycled bottles sounds environmentally friendly but, in reality, polyester is a huge source of pollution. And recycling bottles to make more polyester might be worse than the alternative — keeping the bottles in the beverage industry where they can be recycled.

    Now some fashion companies are moving toward circular, textile-to-textile solutions that cut recycled bottles from the process altogether.

    https://www.greenbiz.com/article/why-hm-turning-away-polyester-recycled-bottles?

     

     

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  • Can Syre Succeed Where Renewcell Failed?

    Ken Pucker, professor of the practice at The Fletcher School at Tufts University, worries about many things. One of them is whether the fashion industry is going about circularity the wrong way.

    The collapse of Renewcell, which until recently transmuted clothing castoffs into sheets of dried pulp that could be dissolved to create viscose, rayon and other man-made cellulosic fibers, has been preying on his mind. Shortly after the Swedish company revealed that it would be declaring bankruptcy, H&M Group, its largest stakeholder, announced that it was linking arms with investor group Vargas Holdings to launch a new venture to ramp up the production of textile-to-textile recycled polyester. The retailer currently sources its recycled polyester from bottle-to-textile recycling, which has come under fire for nicking old plastic bottles from the more efficient and repeatable process of making new soda or water containers.

    https://finance.yahoo.com/news/syre-succeed-where-renewcell-failed-130000814.html

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  • How French Republicans are battling against Shein and Temu

    With the French and European elections happening in June, French Republicans are trying to sway voters by targeting Shein and its production practices. Some are taking to TikTok to promote the most recent bill dubbed the “fast fashion tax”.

    The proposed legislation, called “loi 2268”, which was passed by the center-right political party Horizona through the lower Assembly on March 14, now has to go through the French Senate next spring. It was promoted by Antoine Vermorel-Marques, right-wing MP, in a March 14 video on TikTok. On the platform, he parodies fast fashion haul videos while promoting his political proposals.

    How French Republicans are battling against Shein and Temu

     

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  • The problem with fashion’s sustainability awards

    A crop of fashion accolades have been awarded to fashion brands, recognising progress in circularity and other sustainability goals. It’s a double-edged sword, experts say.

    https://www.voguebusiness.com/sustainability/the-problem-with-fashions-sustainability-awards-gucci-cnmi

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  • Are Luxury’s Biggest Brands Inflating Away Their Emissions?

    Soaring luxury goods prices have boosted turnover at companies like LVMH and Kering, helping them to report reductions in their ‘emissions intensity’ — the volume of planet-warming gases released relative to revenue.

    https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/sustainability/kering-lvmh-luxury-inflating-away-emissions/?utm_source=newsletter_dailydigest&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily_Digest_260923&utm_term=YAYLEWK4TFE7HBP774ZQEENYR4&utm_content=top_story_1_title

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  • How Climate Change Is Transforming the Way We Shop

    The first day of 2023 was a record breaker.

    Across Europe, many countries experienced their warmest-ever New Year’s Day, with pictures of Alpine ski slopes denuded of snow making headlines. In the US, a Christmas cold snap gave way to an unseasonably warm start to January in many states.

    https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/sustainability/climate-change-weather-consumer-spending-seasonless/

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  • Here’s How Marketers Accelerate Fashion’s Sustainable Transition

    Fashion brands and marketers have a new roadmap for sustainable transformation.

    Incorporating buzzy practices, including regenerative agricultureand circularity, companies like Outerknown, J. Crew Group and VF Corporation are demonstrating the benefits of progress in several of the 12 areas of transformation laid out in a new report from Accenture.

    But there’s a gulf between what the economic system incentivizes and what must happen to pull clothing manufacturing within the planetary boundaries.

     

    https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/heres-how-marketers-accelerate-fashions-sustainable-transition/

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  • Can fast fashion slow down? It’s not that simple

    One of fast fashion’s biggest players says it’s taking major steps toward a more sustainable business model. But in an industry predicated on low cost, low quality and high production volume, experts say it won’t be simple.

    “It’s hard to see how they actually deliver on their emissions reductions targets,” said Ken Pucker, a professor at the Fletcher School at Tufts University in Medford, Mass., who focuses on sustainability.

    “Because volumes are going to continue to go up.”

     

    https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/fast-fashion-sustainability-targets-1.6913112

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