Fashion. For a future.

Author: Tiffanie Darke

  • High intensity shoppers are causing a returns problem.

    High intensity shoppers are causing a returns problem.

    If you are on the sustainability track, chances are you are curbing your consumerism. However for 27% of UK clothing shoppers, over consumption is becoming a chronic problem. A survey commissioned by WEFT identifies ‘high intensity shoppers’ (defined as shoppers who buy at least two items of clothing/shoes per month): this cohort makes up 27% of UK shoppers and they are responsible for half of all clothing purchases. The average number of purchases per month for this cohort is 5.5 (and 7 items for luxury customers).

    What’s more, these shoppers have become problematic for brands and retailers, particularly in the luxury segment. High intensity shoppers are known to frequently engage in “free rental” by wearing and returning items: a third of high-intensity shoppers surveyed admitted to purchasing, wearing once, and returning clothing for a full refund; this behavior is twice as high among luxury brand customers. 

    The ability to resell items efficiently through preloved platforms may also be part of the reason why over-consumptive behaviour is on the rise: the WEFT research found a fall in repair and rental use in line with a rise in second hand sales. The gamification of shopping, either through advertising that encourages purchasing behaviour (‘get it before it goes’, ‘one time only discounts’, countdown timers) or through the addictive nature of resale apps, is creating a form of shopping addiction. In February, the European Union opened an investigation into fast fashion giants Shein and Temu over concerns about their allegedly addictive design. Recently, a jury found Meta and Google liable for harm caused by the addictive qualities of their platforms’ social media platforms. It’s not hard to imagine the same logic applying to retailers. “I know I should just stop, but I can’t,” says Amy, 31. “I worry if I don’t buy it I will regret it later.” Amy admits to buying up to 25 items per month, but sees rental and resale platforms as a way to excuse her behaviour, “even though I know it’s all got a bit out of control.” 

    While Amy says she is not one of the shoppers who engage in ‘free rental’, there is anecdotal evidence that luxury consumers, tired of high prices and labouring under the assumption that big brands can afford it, see buying, wearing without removing the tags, and then returning product under the premise of ‘it didn’t fit’ as fair game. One multi-brand shopping site admitted the behaviour has been on the rise for several years now. For customers looking to create fashion content, this ruse has become increasingly popular. Net-a-Porter have taken to publishing the following statement as a form of discouragement: “We monitor the number of returns made by customers in order to check whether the purchase of products is pursued for consumer purposes and is not, on the contrary, pursued for commercial, entrepreneurial or professional purposes, and/or is otherwise related to fraudulent intent.”

    The rise in online shopping has made the returns problem more acute, as shoppers resort to ‘bracketing’ – buying clothes in multiple sizes, with the intention of returning what does not fit. A report from the British Fashion Council in 2023 which surveyed a wide range of retailers from Jimmy Choo to John Lewis, found 30 per cent of online purchases are returned, versus 10 per cent of those bought in physical stores. Fashion’s returns challenge has been exacerbated by the rise of the Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) model, which has enabled consumers to purchase items without the immediate payment – streamlining the ability to purchase, wear and return without ever having to pay a penny.

    Returns are estimated to have cost the UK fashion industry at least £7 billion in 2022, generating approximately 750,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions. Processing returns is costly, as the brand has to pay for reverse shipping (often subsidized), inspection & repackaging, restocking or liquidation, customer service and lost resale value (especially for seasonal fashion). Many brands have shortened the window for returns from a month to 14 days, and begun charging for the process. Two years ago ASOS launched a £3.95 returns fee after it admitted the behaviour of 6% of high intensity shoppers was in part responsible for a £100m hit to profits: shoppers who were frequently ordering, then returning ‘a high proportion’.

    So what happens to all these returned items? The BFC report found that half of all returns are resold at an average discount of 40 per cent; three per cent of returns remain unsold, of which half are sent to landfill, a quarter are recycled and a further quarter incinerated. The EU has now banned the incineration of unsold clothing, but it is still allowed in the UK. For high street brands, the cost of processing returns can be a barrier. “One Spanish retailer is well known for sending returns to a UK warehouse for donation or destruction – the cost of sending it back to Spain to be repackaged and reprocessed is not worth the time and money,” revealed one operations insider. 

    Over 30% of manufactured clothing is never actually sold for wear and needs a circular solution. Separate research by WEFT (undertaken to prepare the UK government for Extended Producer Responsibility regulation) has indicated that a significant number of clothes shoppers would be happy to pay a 50p tax per item on clothing to contribute to circularity initiatives – and some happy to pay up to £5. “We went to nearly 3,000 shoppers and our analysis showed that up to 50p, it makes almost no difference in their choice of what they buy, both with higher and lower priced items,” says Gerrard Fisher. “Once you get over 50p, the purchase level goes down and they start swapping to items that are cheaper or are more expensive but have a lower fee.”

    If the fee is introduced, it would only be charged to the customer the first time that product is placed on the market. “If it’s a reused item the fee isn’t charged, so it will be interesting to see what happens with returns,” says Fisher. “As brands are trying to reprocess [returned] products, we might see a choice for a brand new product, or one that’s been returned that’s cheaper because there’s no fee.”

    If this regulation goes ahead in the UK, and the hope amongst circularity advocates is that it will, the cost will be driven by the high intensity shopping cohort, but born by all of us.

    Tiffanie is an author, activist and founder of the Rule of Five campaign and the sustainable luxury concept @agora-ibiza. You can read more of her work on Substack at It’s Not Sustainable

  • New Year health kick? Time to ditch your toxic activewear.

    New Year health kick? Time to ditch your toxic activewear.

    January – time to get your sweat on. But if it’s a health kick you’re after, you may want to re-examine your wardrobe. A recent study by the University of Birmingham proved for the first time that PFAS – the forever chemicals building up in our environment with links to cancer, hormone disruption and low infant birth weight – can be absorbed from clothing through the skin. On top of that, the new, shorter chain PFAS the chemicals industry is switching to following bans on longer chain fluorocarbons, are more effective at crossing the skin barrier.

    For sportswear, this raises flags. PFAS are present in many of the dyes and invisible finishes we expect of performance materials. Sportswear is often tight, we sweat in it, creating better conditions for osmosis, and the abrasive nature of workouts means the textiles rub against the skin. But when it comes to performance wear, those great synthetic textile revolutions of the 20th century – waterproof Goretex, stretchy Lycra and Spandex, ‘odour, sweat resistant’ nylons – still win out. No one wants a sports bra without support, or a running vest you can’t sweat in. So what are the options?

    There are twin evils when it comes to synthetic materials – the microplastics that these textiles shed, which we know are building up everywhere from the Arctic ice sheet to your mother’s placenta, and the chemical dyes and finishes that are used to increase their performance. “The cheaper the product, the cheaper the chemistry, and that’s where you have concerns about toxicity,” says Matthias Foessel, of Beyond Surface Technologies. Consumers have two options – going natural and regenerative, or sticking around for cleaner, alternative biomaterials.

    Let’s take the latter first – Nanoloom is one of the great hopes to replace the stretch we expect from Lycra and Spandex. Created out of the Nobel prize winning graphene discovery, Nanoloom claims to have a bonding process that allows a high percentage of graphene to be incorporated into yarn. With exceptional moisture wicking, water resistance, durability and stretch, Nanoloom is a non toxic, biodegradable alternative to Elastene. “Stretch and recovery is 100%” says co-founder Victoria Mataczynski, triumphant from a recent trial with Gymshark. The company begins commercial production next year and presents a PFAs free solution to the industry. But competition is tough: “Elastene was innovated in the 70s, so we’re expected to meet a similar standard of production and performance as something that’s been around for decades – and is super cheap.”

    “Some of the new bio-based materials coming to market now are simply better: they outperform legacy (fossil fuel based) materials, they’re cheaper at scale, they’re non toxic, and they’re carbon-negative,” says Nic Gorini, of venture capital firm, Spin Ventures. “Awareness of toxicity of existing materials is going to be a big driver in their uptake in the next decade.”

    Green chemistry pioneers Beyond Surface Technologies have two 100% plant-based water repellency products coming out this year. They also have two 100% biocarbon based moisture wicking finishes already in market: “They are state of the art,” says Foessel, “with performance and durability equal to petroleum finishes,” name checking Patagonia, Lululemon, adidas, PUMA and Fabletics, as brands trialling their cleaner approach.

    While we wait to see if these materials will reach scale, your current best option is to go natural. Don’t be fooled by the ‘benefits’ of recycled polyester – a recent Changing Markets study found recycled polyester sheds more microplastics than virgin. “We are oversold the benefits of specialist performance wear,” says Ed Brial, founder of regenerative cotton solution, Materra, now used by Mango and Ecoalf. “You can go for a run in t-shirt and joggers.” Cotton absorbs water “and can be quite heavy if not woven in the right way, but it doesn’t pick up smells like plastics do, is durable and biodegradable.” Community Clothing’s Patrick Grant agrees: “The men’s 100m record before synthetics stood at 9.95 seconds. Only very few people have run faster. Synthetic sports clothing gives only a slight performance edge.” Grant has developed Community Clothing Organic, a 100% natural, biodegradable sportswear collection, from waistband to stitching thread. Five years of innovation has produced lightweight, fast-drying cotton fabrics, a woven natural rubber and cotton elastic. What’s more it’s affordable – from £30 for a racer back vest.

    Image courtesy of Community Clothing

    Less affordable is merino sportswear, but undoubtedly wool offers incredible benefits in terms of thermo regulation, as well as superior technical advances in weaving, enabling brands like Icebreaker to achieve a 97% merino wool collection. Even more impressive is Mover, a mountaineering company whose range of Ventile cotton and 100% wool outerwear promise superior performance in extreme conditions.

    Brands like Pangaia and BAM offer semi-synthetics in the form of bamboo and corn, which derive their polymers from natural sources, not petrochemicals. Any polymer-based fibre will shed microfibres through wear and washing, but “the important question is what happens to the particles: if a material is biodegradable or compostable, shed fibres can break down under the right environmental conditions,” say Pangaia, whose 365 Seamless Activewear collection is PFAS-free, and certified under OEKO-TEX® STANDARD 100. If you are looking for a good stretch legging and sports bra, they offer better options than anything petrochemical derived, and what’s more are finished with the brand’s trademark natural PPRMINT™ oil for odour resistance. 

    Image courtesy of PANGAIA

    When it comes to footwear, the matrix gets more complicated. Shoes often contain up to 20 component parts, and durability is the priority. No one wants a mushroom leather running shoe that falls apart in a few months. At barefoot health brand Vivobarefoot, durability is the priority. “With all the effort and resources it takes putting shoes together, they need to last a long time,” says Charlotte Pumford, Vivobarefoot’s sustainability lead. Instead, shoes are designed for disassembly and repair.

    That said, the company is constantly trialling new materials, working with NFW’s natural rubber Pliant and leather alternatives Mirum and Hyphalite, as well as algae derived leather alternative, Algenesis. But until those biomaterials compete on durability, recycled polyester wins. “Everything is tested robustly against European and California specific legislation, which is pretty strict,” says Pumford, “although we go beyond just legal limits.” Prioritising foot health and limiting impact is a constant balance: “Our mission is to reconnect people back to nature: we enable feet to biomechanically do what they are meant to do.” Professional athletes, personal trainers and fitness experts agree, and while there are now over 90 barefoot brands following in Vivo’s wake, “using less certified and cheaper materials, we remain stoic in our mission.”

    “People do not react well to wearing shoddy plastic on our bodies. We should be worried and concerned,” says Brial, “for human health, planetary health, and the health of workers.”

    “Polyester took 50 years to get there, with a really big oil lobby behind them and lots of evil marketing to get people to use it,” says Vivo design consultant Aisha Kuijk. “We have to form a rebellion – our own lobby – to push it through. We have something to fight for!”

    Tiffanie is an author, activist and founder of the Rule of Five campaign and the sustainable luxury concept @agora-ibiza. You can read more of her work on Substack at It’s Not Sustainable