Vestiaire Collective adds Zara, H&M, Gap, Mango, Uniqlo to its fast fashion ban list

French resale giant Vestiaire Collective is accelerating its drive to squeeze fast fashion out of its business and has announced a second wave of labels it’s banning from its platform as of this week.

The 30 labels now added to the list include some of the most popular fashion names such as Abercrombie & Fitch, Gap, H&M, Mango, Uniqlo, Urban Outfitters, and Zara, among others

It’s the second year in a three-year rollout of the strategy and follows the initial announcement in November 2022.

Interestingly, the company said after that 2022 kick-off, it saw 70% of members impacted by the ban “come back to the platform to shop for better quality items and invest in secondhand”. 

It added that furthering its “commitment to create a more circular economy, Vestiaire Collective worked with a committee of nine fashion and sustainability experts to create a clear definition of fast fashion and leverage this framework to ban industry giants from its website”. 

The retailer acknowledged that the new ban “will spark debate” but that “with the climate crisis accelerating and ninety-two million tons of textile waste thrown away every year, it is a necessary step to reduce fashion’s environmental and social impact”.

Its new framework includes features such as the estimated average price point and repairability of items; the estimated number of collections or number of new item drops a year; the number of items available at a given moment; the production cycle time, from design to arrival in-store; and the the frequency and intensity of sale promotions.

Seeing the impact firsthand

The original decision to begin banning fast fashion came after a team from the firm “went on an exploratory trip to Kantamanto in Ghana, the largest reuse and upcycling economy in the world”. What they discovered in terms of the volume and impact of fast fashion waste led to a quick decision to begin implementing the ban.

And this week, the retailer’s Chief Impact Officer Dounia Wone said: “The decision was made to support Vestiaire Collective’s long-time work to promote alternatives to the dominant model of fashion. 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.”

From a practical viewpoint, the company said that “banning fast fashion only works if consumers shop more consciously, and the company encourages buyers to think critically about their purchasing habits and the true impact of their choices”.

So it has “created an educational journey for buyers and sellers who will see informational messages at every step of their shopping or listing experience. They will also receive practical alternatives for their existing fast fashion items via an online guide with resources for donation strategies and sustainability insights”.

It has also committed to educating companies on the benefits of sustainability “as well as evaluating existing relationships with partners and influencers based on their current practices”. 

And it’s launching a global campaign using AI that’s dubbed Think First, Buy Second across its digital channels. It “will include a video and visuals of piles of clothes located in some of the most recognisable locations of the Global North, such as Time Square, or the Eiffel Tower to replicate what textile waste and landfills would look like in consumers’ own countries”. 

It will “encourage social media users to take the pledge in an effort to turn Black Friday into a Better Friday. Participants can choose between pledging to only buy second-hand this Better Friday, until the end of the year, in 2024 or to stick to secondhand forever”.