Outside of shopping pledges, people can also take advantage of clothing swaps to gain a sense of community and new-to-you clothing options, and repair services, which are also on the rise. Overdyeing clothes can be an option, as can upcycling them into new styles — a practice shared by designers globally, from New York to Ghana’s Kantamanto market. The list is endless, it just requires some creativity, planning and a little intention setting.
What a more balanced business model could look like for brands, the researchers behind the Joyful Closet challenge suggest, is that fashion’s profits can be “repartitioned” such that new product sales account for only a fraction of a company’s revenue, as opposed to the majority of it. In her “Post Growth Fashion” Substack post, Vladimirova envisions a future where customers continue to spend money on fashion, but only 40 per cent of their total expenditure (instead of today’s 97.9 per cent) goes towards acquiring new pieces; 30 per cent would go to “fashion experiences” such as rental or digital fashion, and the final 30 per cent would be spent on “maintenance and improvement”, like repairs and upcycling.
Also important is how these changes are framed, talked about and modelled. “It’s about the modelling of the behaviour, not what we tell people to do,” says Merz. “We don’t look at the drivers of our behaviours — they’re all around us pushing us in the complete opposite direction of what we’re telling them to do. We’re shining a spotlight on one area and telling people to do this, while we’ve got all of these behavioural influences pushing people in the other direction. I think it’s critical to recognise that.”
Moving away from overconsumption, in other words, needs to become the “cool” thing to do, or it needs social proofing, in the words of Rachel Arthur, a sustainability strategist who authored the United Nations’ Sustainable Fashion Communication Playbook. “We need to bring on board more influencers, thought leaders, creators who can help make sustainable lifestyles truly aspirational, as well as inspirational,” she says. “We need the really big names to come forth here and that’s not happened yet.” Will the current de-influencing and anti-overconsumption trend become permanent interests or fade away as the year wears on?
Merz is optimistic, despite how entrenched certain interests are in maintaining the status quo. “We would have a much larger challenge on our hands globally if the current system were breeding really satisfied, happy people. It isn’t, it’s breeding unwell people.”
And this is where fashion has the potential to lead or risk being left behind. “There’s a creative reimagination that needs to happen. What are the alternative revenue streams brands [can turn to] instead of — not in addition to, as what’s been happening now, but instead of — selling new stuff,” says Vladimirova. “It’s harder to imagine a positive post-growth future than to imagine a dystopian post-apocalyptic future. It’s a crisis of imagination.”
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