18 ms·

Proposed EU rules would require clothes to last longer and be easier to repair

277 points by 0x54MUR41 5y ago

umrashrf 5y ago
Classic UK poking their fingers on everything and anything.
bertil 5y ago
I feel like the biggest hole, companies operating bins claiming that they will recycle clothes while they will send them to third-world country to be landfilled or burned, isn’t addressed in that law.
nonrandomstring 5y ago
More good stuff from Europe that I hope will radically change markets. Quality is a huge issue. It's changed my shopping habits because it's often better to simply go without than to buy cheap rubbish that lasts a week and causes you more inconvenience than if you'd never had it. I mostly buy vintage things that can be repaired now. In the UK brands like Marks and Spencer used to make clothes that lasted. Now they sell the same appallingly made sweatshop stuff. They still have their famous returns policy, and honour it, but I'd rather have something that lasts than something I can take back when it breaks. Guess they have a procurement issue because quality is uniformly low. Same with cheap electronic goods; pointless locked-down IoT cruft that cannot be repurposed or fixed and is landfill fodder straight after unboxing. We're drowning in cheap manufactured goods whose short lifespan and overhead (transport and disposal) dwarfs its functional utility.
- WelcomeShorty 5y ago
  As much as I share your sentiment, my daughters disagree. They buy quality handbags, jewellery and jackets, but everything else is a consumable. They do share their clothing amongst each other and a couple of close friends, but otherwise will hardly wear a combination more than once (outside that is). Here I am, buying all my cloths in 5 fold, since I do not like matching different items.
  - FranzFerdiNaN 5y ago
    Lets be honest: your daughters are a victim of the cheap fashion brands and their succesful campaigns to brainwash people into thinking you need to have new clothed every week.
    - realPubkey 5y ago
      My whole generation is brainwashed with a shopping addiction.
      - 1over137 5y ago
        Your generation? I think most living generations have this addiction. :(
    - ushakov 5y ago
      they are victims of social media influencers, who encourage this behavior unsustainable and wasteful consumption the reason fast shopping exists, kids can’t afford new fashion item every week, but SHEIN and others make it so cheap and nice looking that makes this behavior possible
      - anthony_d 5y ago
        Maybe, but the social media influences I've seen are just as much victims as anyone else. The difference is they've embraced it more fully and figured out how to make money off it.
  - hunter-gatherer 5y ago
    I wonder if consumable fashion is mostly a women's clothes issue??? I see this narrative told often, but I bought a couple pair of carharts and a few pair of jeans, a couple flannel shirts, and own 6 or 7 gildan cotten t-shirts. All of these I have owned more than 3 years and use one or two times a week. The t shirts are also my gym shirts. I have two pair of running shorts that have lost an almost unbelievably long time given the fact that I wear one or the other almost every day. None of my clothes look like they need replacing anytime soon. Except for socks, which for whatever mystery known but to god periodically vanish. My wife's clothing situation much more resembles your daughters I'm curious if other men here have cycle through clothes continously, and if so, how? Edit: spelling
- loceng 5y ago
  The trend I have seen with clothing brands is most often once they become popular, become a recognized "brand name" - often because of their high quality, good design, and relative affordability. Then the economies of scale "engineers" of business folks start to scale it by reducing costs (less quality control, lower quality materials, etc) to maximize profit per unit sold - milking the brand as quickly as possible to extract as much as they can as soon as they can. This leads towards killing the brand or where it just becomes at par with whatever the status quo ecosystem allows based on environmental costs like mall rental space, etc. Executives seem to know or are making the bet that brands may not stay popular for long as it may be fad buying and not a sustainable trend, or they simply know they can make more money individually/selfishly if they use these tactics - and hire people who use these tactics; why make $15+ million over 20 years when you maybe could milk a brand to death and get $10+ million in 5 years? What I wonder is though are there potential pitfalls of this for consumers? Have they or anyone done a study on cost changes, e.g. will costs increase substantially in short-term but perhaps that is more than made up on the tail end with the durability? Did they publish a list of known poor quality textiles, I imagine that would include such things as low thread count for the textile and perhaps for stitching as well? Does this impact certain styles of clothing that say due to their sheer nature?
  - FredPret 5y ago
    This happens in other industries as well. Mass-market beer comes to mind. The solution, as I see it, starts with owners demanding long term stability in earnings; and a broader quality over quantity philosophy spreading generally.
    - ghaff 5y ago
      This would horrify some friends. But mass market beer is a very predictable and relatively inexpensive product that 95% or whatever of the market likes. I do not and am grateful there are so many alternatives that didn’t exist a few decades ago. But it’s not a low quality just because us beer at least somewhat snobs prefer something different.
      - 5y ago
- Bayart 5y ago
  There are a few excellent UK-made brands out there, although it's on the expensive side it's definitely quality stuff that lasts : Mackintosh, Drake's, Barbour (depending on the price range), Sunspel, Private White V.C., John Smedley, Colhay's etc. I'm personally a huge fan of S.E.H Kelly. And of course there are still the venerable shoe makers of Northampshire which in my opinion remain the best industrial ready-to-wear shoemaking in the world (with a few exceptions, namely Carmina and J.M. Weston) : Edward Green, Crockett & Jones, Cheaney, Church's, Grenson etc. I'm myself a regular Crockett & Jones customer as they make the only size + width combination I've found in ready-to-wear that matches my feet really well. Of course it's a rather militant way of looking at clothing and it's all pretty expensive stuff but : - Frankly it's affordable if you've got an engineer's comp. - It keeps its value well on the second-hand market.
  - Xenoamorphous 5y ago
    But then if someone hears what a pair of Edward Green shoes or SEH Kelly coat costs they’d look at you like you’re insane. PS my C&J Islays are probably my favourite boots, and I’ve got a ventile raincoat from Private White. Some day I’ll def buy something from SEH Kelly, although most of their stuff might be too warm for Spain.
  - yodelshady 5y ago
    The heuristic seems to be: have a brand name but *not* one you'll see on the high street. If it is on the high street, it's expensive in order to fund advertising, not higher quality.
    - Bayart 5y ago
      You've basically got it right when it comes to marking. All the brands I've mentionned, and really all the reputable clothing / shoeing companies, have a production cost that's around 50% of the retail price. Add in all the miscelanous costs and the final margin isn't that high. For the largest of them "marketing" is having a few stores in key areas (London, Paris, NY) and a stall at some events. If you take that formula and input marketing, you've got luxury companies : great craftsmanship at inflated prices.
- juanani 5y ago
  [dead]
- vanilla-almond 5y ago
  In the UK I still think Marks and Spencer (M&S) offer quality clothing at reasonable prices. They don't compete fully with 'fast fashion' prices but they have been affected by competition from other fast fashion retailers by offering their own 'value' lines. If you avoid the cheapest clothing lines at M&S, their mid-priced clothing is generally of longer-lasting and better quality. For example, you can buy organic cotton chinos and jeans in the price range £25-35 (approximately $35-45/€30-40). These are reasonable prices given the premium typically charged for organic clothing.
  - skippyboxedhero 5y ago
    Yep, it is an odd comment because M&S have a relatively good supply chain. I think people assume that if anything breaks, it must have been made in a sweatshop. In reality, the reason why "fast fashion" exists isn't related to quality at all. You can buy t-shirts that cost £3 that will be as long lasting as anything 10x or 100x the price. I am not sure how people think t-shirts are made, there isn't some hidden secret of durability known only to companies that charge a lot. The reason "fast fashion" exists is because most retailers provide terrible value for money. Fast fashion charge significantly less for clothes made in the same factory, with the same materials and labour. That is it. So it is unsurprising this is occurring in Europe: luxury goods manufacturers there successfully lobbied for exemptions from Russian sanctions, they are a formidable lobbying force in Brussels, the aim of this is to stop competition from non-EU manufacturers (particularly from the UK and China). Classic EU. If you can't win, cheat. If you want to do more about this issue, just improve recycling...that is it. Done.
- spicyjpeg 5y ago
  This is all part of a larger phenomenon I like to call the "Amazon syndrome". The quality standard for products seems to be incredibly low nowadays. I see people happily buying whatever cheap Chinese junk Amazon dropshippers sell, for a "low" price that's usually 4-5x the price of the exact same item on AliExpress. Reviews are overwhelmingly positive because most people don't care about actual specs or functionality and give 5 stars as long as it's cheap and it works, even when the product is marked up by the dropshipper and leaves a lot to be desired. Reputable brands that used to make quality products now need to compete on price in a sea of "good enough" garbage, and many of them choose to do so by outsourcing manufacturing to the same Chinese factories that make the no-name stuff. Midrange products disappeared entirely and now the choice is between disposable landfill and ridiculously expensive high-end items. As someonce in a Reddit thread (?) once said: "The product that retails for $500 costs $5 more to manufacture than the low-end equivalent that sells for $20. If you try to find a middle ground and spend $100, you end up with the $20 product in a nice box."
  - southerntofu 5y ago
    > Reputable brands that used to make quality products now need to compete on price I don't think it's just that. Many people (like myself) stopped buying "reputable" brands because they have betrayed their reputation. Nowadays when buying electromechanic devices even when putting 10x the price i have no clue if it's going to last more than 2 years (minimum warranty in EU) and that's a fucking awful problem. In my view, we need 20+ years warranty (minimum, i personally would argue for 50+) on all products mandated by law, then we can start to see some improvement. This is a public policy problem and as much as i hate the EU institutions they are the only entity i know doing anything about this very serious problem creating tons of waste/pollution.
    - b112 5y ago
      Quebec, a province in Canada, passed a law a few years back. Essentially, the language states that the product must last "a reasonable period of time" for its usage case. This is the new province wide, legislated warranty. Buy a washer, are a single man, use it once a week? It breaks in 15 years? Covered. Are a family of 8, wash 2x daily, it breaks after manufacture's stated warranty? Probably, not covered. This helps, because it stops parts that are designed to fail due to time, instead of usage, from destroying the product. There are a few government agencies which will help you with this too, instead of going to court, by merely a form to fill out.
- bjelkeman-again 5y ago
  There are smaller brands that try to be and are a lot better. They deserve attention. Trippen shoes from Germany make comfortable shoes that aren’t exactly main stream, but are repairable and used to offer a very reasonable refurbishment price (haven’t refurbished any for a bit). I have several pairs of 20+ years old shoes from them. https://en.trippen.com/t/men https://en.trippen.com/t/men Nudie jeans offer free repairs at their shops and 10+% discount for new jeans if they are not repairable, as trade-in. If you trade in, and they are usable, they sell as second hand. https://www.nudiejeans.com/repair-spots/#stores https://www.nudiejeans.com/repair-spots/#stores
  - quickthrowman 5y ago
    > Trippen shoes You can just buy any Goodyear (or Blake) welted shoe to have rebuildable shoes, there are dozens of makers that offer more uh… conventional and mainstream styles of shoes anywhere from $200-$2500. England: Loake, Alfred Sargent, C&J, Trickers, Church’s, Edward Green, Saint Crispins, John Lobb US: Allen Edmonds, Alden, Rancourt, Red Wing, White’s, Nick’s, Grant Stone Canada: Viberg Spain: Meermin, Carmina Hungary: Vass
  - viraptor 5y ago
    There's also Patagonia (not a smaller brand) https://www.patagonia.com.au/pages/worn-wear https://www.patagonia.com.au/pages/worn-wear They'll not only repair their clothes for free, even if you've been careless and damaged it yourself, but also you can pay them to repair other brands in their shop.
    - MrApathy 5y ago
      I see this line every so often that Patagonia will repair or replace damaged articles, but the one time I tried, I wasn't successful. I purchased a Tortentshell rain jacket and the laminate on the top of the hood started to peel after a year or so. I took it to a Patagonia store for inspection and they offered to recycle it for me. No repair, no free replacement, no offer of a discount on a replacement.
      - 5y ago
- baybal2 5y ago
- FredPret 5y ago
  I’ve noticed this even with “nice” clothing brands like Banana Republic. I bough a shirt, and within two months it was ready for the garbage pile. I’ve since switched over to the even more expensive Lululemon, which seems vastly better. Time will tell. I’d rather have three very expensive shirts that fit great and last a decade than a tidal wave of garbage that costs the same in the end.
  - adhesive_wombat 5y ago
    Timberland suckered me with their sustainable-fairtrade-robust vibe. I have never seen a pair of trousers disintegrate so fast in the wash, or a pair of jeans wear though at the knees so rapidly.
- mytailorisrich 5y ago
  This is a trade-off like for everything else. Fashion changes fast and therefore does it make sense to sell more expensive clothes that last? Many people want what is fashionable this season, not wear the same things for years. In terms of environmental impact and use of resources I suspect that there is a sweet spot between not lasting at all and very long lasting (like there probably is for appliances and about everything else that people will replace after x months/years anyway) Likewise, "fixable" may incur overheads that actually negate the a priori benefit.
- yeetsfromhellL2 5y ago
  The trouble is not only finding quality goods now, its that once you do they are way more expensive than they used to be since they now serve a smaller market. Not only are they trying to stay afloat with a smaller customer base, they're losing some of the economies of scale, so prices go up or quality goes down.
- dazc 5y ago
  Marks and Spencer are one of many brands that pivoted from quality to crap yet saw no significant decrease in customer loyalty.
- maigret 5y ago
  I once went to a cloth repair shop and asked what brand was better for long term. “None”, they said, “all of them are equally bad nowadays“. So no chance much to make it work over the market it seems.
madaxe_again 5y ago
I provided ecommerce services for a wide variety of U.K. and European fashion brands from 2006-2016, and one thing that always stood out was that about 10% of the customers of each brand would make up >50% of the revenue - be it shoes, garments, or accessories. This applied across other verticals, too, but in fashion the concentration was far more pronounced. The reason these customers had a higher per capita revenue was that they bought something pretty much every week of the year. The thing is, this kind of behaviour is akin to addiction - I recall in more than a few cases concerned partners or parents requesting intervention, and blocking or limiting of accounts - it was up to the retailer how they handled that - we just heard about the ones where they wanted us to do something. So - clamping down on fast fashion is no bad thing, however it addresses a symptom rather than a root cause, which is principally addictive shopping behaviours bought about by saturated and predatory marketing and depressed populations seeking solace in that momentary rush of dopamine when they hit purchase, waiting for a parcel to arrive like an addict waiting for a fix. I mean, hell, I’ve lived the behaviour. Never to the extremes that I’ve seen, but compulsive consumption is an easy if temporary quick fix for a hole in the soul. Fashion is the pinnacle of this, as it gives you not just the purchase rush, but the potential esteem boost from wearing your new garments. The problem remains elsewhere, and more fundamental.
- jdrc 5y ago
  I think consumerist isn't limited to fashion.
  - madaxe_again 5y ago
    It isn’t, by any means, but it’s almost as concentrated in fashion as it is in gambling - you tend to have a fatter long tail and smaller ramp for other verticals. Shoes are the most “Pareto” category in consumer goods that I’ve seen. There are entire brands being propped up by a hard core who spend tens of thousands a year each on shoes.
- ushakov 5y ago
  i have this sort of hole-filling shopping too, yet the items i desire were expensive and made to last a lifetime
airjob 5y ago
For the last ten years I have been anticipating that Europe would become the Switzerland of the world, at a larger scale. For the worth and better. Sustainability is a big part of it and this kind of move as well as the platforms regulation give me hope.
- naoqj 5y ago
  In what way is Europe becoming like Switzerland? There is no direct democracy to begin with, more like the opposite.
- vmception 5y ago
  My mind doesn’t have a large enough heap for this recursive statement
- refurb 5y ago
  Horribly expensive, centered on financial services, great for hiding money and impossible to immigrate too? Not sure what you’re getting at?
  - stackbutterflow 5y ago
    Offering some of the best quality of life on earth maybe.
    - refurb 5y ago
      Quality of life is pretty damn subjective isn't it?
      - danlugo92 5y ago
        I know Europe is not the only place with free healthcare, but, at least for me, free healthcare comes above [everything else]. Yeah sure, you can get insurance in other countries, but there WILL ALWAYS BE fine print, some random procedure and you're not covered, or out of pocket expense, etc. With free healthcare, there's no fine print, everything from a allergic reaction, to neurosurgery the cost will always be 0 no matter what.
k__ 5y ago
Half-OT Fast fashion seems to be one of the problems the metaverse could solve. In the pandemic, many people moved more and more of their social life online. Not 100% of it, but quite a bit more than before. If less people would buy real clothes every season and just show off digital clothes online, this could solve the overproduction issue. You can still signal being wealthy or stylish online, but nobody would actually have to sew all that stuff.
- jdrc 5y ago
  it's true that in second life most people spend on clothing
- vmception 5y ago
  Yeah in my projects lately a lot of the branding has been done with wearables for digital avatars People want to be “in” and will pay or perform tasks to get the things that show theyre in Great human coordination tool
adolph 5y ago
> Manufacturers will have to ensure their clothes are eco-friendly and hard-wearing. Very little of substance in the article. I wonder if this is a “baptists and bootleggers” moment for greens and Euro clothing industry?
JimBlackwood 5y ago
Nice. I’ve been trying to only buy my clothes from brands that are sustainable. The quality of clothes has been great too. https://www.fairify.io/en/brands/ https://www.fairify.io/en/brands/ has been a great help finding sustainable brands. A bit sad Levi’s is only a C though, I like their jeans.
- Bayart 5y ago
  Nowadays most Levi's jeans are just stuff made in cheap labour countries with poor cloth. I think they still made some selvedge jeans in the US under their Made & Crafted label. If you want good Made in the US jeans, look at Gustin. But nowadays the most renown manufacturers are Japanese, like Momotaro.
dirtyid 5y ago
Unless substantial price increase, I don't see this changing behavior much. Third world landfills will have slightly more durable textiles with better stitching.
paganel 5y ago
As a side-effect this will also increase the prices of the cheapest clothes available on the market, and as such would in effect be a regressive tax.
- naoqj 5y ago
  - jotm 5y ago
  - rozenmd 5y ago
    They get subsidised by the individual countries to soften the blow? Think I'm missing your point.
- Proven 5y ago
- oliwarner 5y ago
  It will also mean a healthier used market with modern garments that will last years and years. New cars are disproportionately expensive too. Shrugs. I think it's okay that not everyone can afford everything new, as long as they can afford enough to not be further disadvantaged.
  - PolygonSheep 5y ago
    I too think the poor should be driving clapped out beaters and wearing secondhand clothes. It builds character!
    - oliwarner 5y ago
      There's a facetiousness to your reply that really doesn't help the discussion. My response requires thinking about clothes in a different way, but that's the sort of thinking we all need to engage with. Since the 50s we've seen races to the bottom with clothes, homeware, furniture. It's all lovely shiny and new and when we've decided we need to change it, we burn or throw into a hole in the ground. Fashion has invented its own mechanisms and sub-industry to make sure things aren't just disposable, but that people want to throw them away. It's disgusting. We don't do that with cars. We demand that cars are serviceable. Older cars doesn't carry stigma (unless they're clapped out). We need to start demanding the same from everything we buy.
scns 5y ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUD_Jeans https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUD_Jeans A satisfied customer
- refurb 5y ago
  That seems like a marketing gimmick? I mean denim is already a renewable resource. Recycling old denim costs energy just like producing new denim. It’s like people who feel good about putting plastic in the recycling bin even though most of it ends up in landfills.
  - xxs 5y ago
    I guess the major issue with 'plastics' is that they are wildly different. Polyethylene (PE, LDPE - plastic bags, HDPE - pipes], Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene - ABS [Lego, cheap tools shell], and polycarbonate (PC plexiglass, quality tools] would be pretty much the same (just plastic) for most people. Yet, even sorting them is expensive, then the quality and degradation of the source material is unknown, so recycling them for new products is not very feasible.
  - scns 5y ago
    You can talk it down if you want, it is easy, did that for years. I like that they are doing something that makes them earn less but has a positive effect. Cotton production needs huge amount of water. Would it be better to burn or throw those jeans in a landfill? Got some sweaters by [0]. The label says how many PET-bottles got recycled for it. [0] https://www.craghoppers.com/ https://www.craghoppers.com/
    - refurb 5y ago
      What do you mean “earn less”? If anything they might earn more.
      - scns 5y ago
        They earn less, since recycling costs money.
mobjack 5y ago
How do they define fast fashion? What makes it different than a budget T-shirt that you wear multiple times? Fast fashion is more about how clothes are marketed than the inherent properties of the clothing itself.
- hypertele-Xii 5y ago
  The inherent properties of the clothing itself are designed for how they are marketed. It has everything to do with fast fashion. It's vertically-integrated planned obsolesence.
- refurb 5y ago
  Yes it’s somewhat odd. At least how I learned about it was the fast turnaround from design to store to capitalize on a trend. Instead of it taking 6-9 months from initial design to manufacture to store placement, you could design quickly, outsource to global manufacturers and have new designs in store in 2-3 months. Not sure how that’s more wasteful than traditional clothing. It all depends on often you buy new clothes?
  - maigret 5y ago
    It’s especially targeting brands like Primark which are incredibly cheap and poor quality. Clothes costs a few euros and are intended to be worn only a few times.
jaggill 5y ago
Firstly, Europe leading the way as ever in legislation and regulations on ESG. Secondly, fast fashion has severe social and compliance impacts and that is often overlooked (the environmental and climate piece is well understood). Whats needed is a more homogeneous way to measure climate and labor impact especially in fashion. Newer, sustainable-focussed brands are taking charge and measuring and publishing their impacts.
- riidom 5y ago
  It kinda starts to look like that the EU is cleaning up with laws behind USA's turbo capitalism mess. They could start to optimize this ritual a bit...
quickthrowman 5y ago
I’m able to find good quality shoes and boots, jackets, watches, and bags. I can’t for the life of me find quality chinos, polos, t-shirts, sweaters, and other basic articles of clothing. I’m fine with Levi jeans, but all other clothing items seem to be crappy cotton/spandex blends of poor quality fabric, no matter if you spend $15 or $150 on a garment. It’s very frustrating, I’d rather just buy quality stuff that lasts, but I’m unable to find any quality clothing. Hopefully this legislation encourages clothing manufacturers to use quality fabrics and construction again.
- viraptor 5y ago
  I've not found that for the heavier clothes. If you have money to spend, outdoors clothes shops will sell you awesome quality clothes. (What's yours local equivalent of Kathmandu or Patagonia brands) But I totally agree on t-shirts - I've been trying to find good ones for a while and each company ended up being a disappointment. American Apparel seems to survive the longest, but I got a recommendation to try one of the online-ordered tailored items. I've used those for shirts and was very happy in the past... it seems like an overkill for t-shirts but I'll give it a go.
layo 5y ago
This fast-fashion shit has ruined everything. Zara is a spanish brand that around 20 years ago used to produce high quality garments, remember having a lot of shirts, sweater and pants lasting from 5 to 10 years .... After going global they shit everything up .... Always the same issue with capitalism and globalization
mike128 5y ago
If I was making policies I would oblige manufacturers of anything to take back and recycle their product at the end of life. This would make sure products/packagings are made to be recyclable and/or biodegradable. This should be applied not only to clothing, but really everything. I would expect the first result would be no single use plastics anywhere. Obviously the cost of the change would be transferred to consumers on the purchase price. However we are already paying it in a deferred manner with the degradation of the natural world.
- thechao 5y ago
  Yeah — I think a “you sell it, you scrap it” law would de-externalize a lot of really harmful end-user sales: not just for source manufacturers, but every middle-man in between.
  - hetspookjee 5y ago
    Not sure if that is enough given that most product returns are destroyed - from iPads to brand new clothes. So than that rule is already out I think? Though an extension that that is forbidden in some sense should be fair. Or a rule that forbids the relative amount of trash produced by a company?
    - magicalhippo 5y ago
      Here in Norway we have a law to handle recycling and waste handling of electrical equipment[1]. It requires importers and producers of electrical and electronic equipment to be a member of a return company like Norsirk or RENAS[2], directly funding the collection, recycling and waste handling. Something similar could be introduced for other product groups as well like clothes. [1]: https://norsirk.no/produsentansvar/lover-og-regler/om-avfallsforskriften-for-ee-produkter/ https://norsirk.no/produsentansvar/lover-og-regler/om-avfall... [2]: https://renas.no/ https://renas.no/
    - thechao 5y ago
      The customer ends up holding the negative exernality with little ability to affect the upstream pipeline. By sending the waste "back up the pipe" it becomes each middle-company's problem. The point being that each company now has to consider how to get rid of their own generated waste. It de-externalizes the waste problem. If they choose to put the waste in to a landfill, then so be it: they have to pay to do that.
mynameishere 5y ago
I'm always glad to learn that I was very moral all along about something. In this case, my 10 year old, falling-apart sweatshirt that I wear every day is real, real virtuous. (I kind of suspected it all along, to be sure.) easier to repair Yeah, put down your phones and pick up your needle and thread, ladies. Good luck with that. Maybe the 19th century wasn't so bad.
- wallfacer120 5y ago
  "Yeah, put down your phones and pick up your needle and thread, ladies. Good luck with that. Maybe the 19th century wasn't so bad." I am glad that you recognized that idea that modern clothing should be "repairable" as insane and regressive. Its a pretty good demonstration of why alot of "anti-materialist/consumerist" rhetoric is, in my estimate, actually harmful. They're making a policy out of reducing the standard of living.
mrbeanhead 5y ago
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
mrbeanhead 5y ago
EU parliament members who can afford Brioni suits and haute couture for their families can’t be in charge of making rules like these.
throw93232 5y ago
We could abolish face masks. Every person uses couple every day. Most masks are not recycled. And it is micro fiber that accumulates in animal tissues!
01100011 5y ago
Fast fashion sucks but this is an odd thing to prioritize given the situation Europe now finds itself in. With a massive energy shortfall, Europe is likely entering the worst economic period since WWII. I am proud of them for sticking to their principles, I just think they should be focused on the existential threats they are currently facing.
- orobinson 5y ago
  I’d argue addressing things like fast fashion is focusing on the existential threat that we are all facing. It’s just one of the many things in society that needs to be curtailed if we want to bring our usage of planetary resources back into safe boundaries.
- sputr 5y ago
  Legislative systems are massive and employ a small army of people, and such proposals take years to develop. Their current focus will become apparent in a few years.
- dgellow 5y ago
  Developing legislation like this one on fast-fashion has little to do with management of current events. It’s a very slow and long process done in the background and doesn’t take away focus from energy and economical issues.
hwers 5y ago
There's a big part of me that agrees with this. I am a bit worried though that we're making it harder and harder for new people coming into the world to make new startups, with more and more rules like this imposing a higher entry cost. Feels like we're just going to have massive companies in the future who are able to navigate all this, and too high a barrier of entry for new companies.
- jdasdf 5y ago
  That's because we are. This helps no one.
itronitron 5y ago
I highly recommend the book "Worn: A People's History of Clothing" by Sofi Thanhauser, for those interested in learning more about environmental impacts of the clothing/textile industry and its history.
goethes_kind 5y ago
Somebody should setup the uncool and reliable brand of male clothing. I want the Toyota Corolla of male clothing. I do not care about fashion. I want to wear timeless long lasting clothes. Don't care about branding either. Just somebody please setup a shop where I do not have to worry about quality, but is also not a shop that pretends that every item of clothing is hand tailored by an Italian craftsman and costs half a thousand euros.
- void-pointer 5y ago
  Uni-Qlo.
  - Etheryte 5y ago
    I haven't tried any other items from them, but I own one sweater from them and I have no bad words to say about it. The quality is superb and it has lasted me a long time. Anecdotal experience, but so far a good one.
    - layer8 5y ago
      > lasted me a long time That only indicates what the quality was a long time ago. I’ve seen far too many brands and products go from good quality to poor quality over the years. Good quality sold N years ago says nothing about the quality currently sold, unfortunately.
  - duncanc4 5y ago
    I found their jeans to not be good quality. I had a pair get holes after one year of use.
    - elric 5y ago
      One year? That's pretty good by my standards. I suffer a crotch blowout roughly every 3 months or so. Jeans, apparently, are not made for people with thighs, nor for people who enjoy sitting cross legged. And certainly not both.
janmarsal 5y ago
I just hope this doesn't have any (un)intended consequences that will replace natural materials like wool and cotton with synthetic fabrics or something equally ridiculous.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
axg11 5y ago
Fast fashion isn’t the only type of clothing that exists today. I think it’s shortsighted to deride fast fashion without understanding why it’s so popular. Every consumer in the EU, today, has the choice to pay for higher quality and more sustainable clothing. Fashion is unsustainable because the average consumer doesn’t care about the sustainability. They want cheap clothes. That’s it. We can choose to shift the negative externalities back to the consumer or manufacturer, but let’s not forget that people already have the choice to vote with their wallets and they’re resoundingly voting for fast fashion.
- lobocinza 5y ago
  Only if it was that easy. The consumer lacks information. He can't make a rational choice when he is bombarded by disinformation (marketing claims).
  - axg11 5y ago
    Right. Let’s assume everyone is ignorant and make decisions for them. The plebes don’t know better. Big brother will help you lead a better life. The average person is very aware that fast fashion is unsustainable. They just don’t care enough to pay more. They are making a rational choice.
    - untitaker_ 5y ago
      I don't think anybody disputes that the choices made by consumers are rational. The question is, how many of them are actually satisfied with the options the market makes them choose from?
    - lobocinza 5y ago
      How so? Clothes are cheap to manufacture and expensive due to marketing (publicity and distribution). I as a consumer I'm powerless because product from brand X is not necessarily more sustainable or durable that similar product from fast-fashion just because it costs 5 times more.
- untitaker_ 5y ago
donatj 5y ago
I feel like for fast fashion specifically, this is a move in entirely the wrong direction. Fashion trends change quickly, a lot of people buy clothes with full intentions of wearing them for a couple weeks until they’re out of style and then just throw them away. Making fast fashion to last years is putting more valuable materials in the dump. Without a major change in peoples buying habits, it’s just making things worse.
- uxcolumbo 5y ago
  If the quality goes up - prices will probably have to go up as well, which means potential behavioral change, i.e. can't buy clothes every 2 weeks anymore.
  - donatj 5y ago
    So let the lower classes eat cake when it comes to fashion?
    - uxcolumbo 5y ago
      Why is it necessary to buy clothes every 2 weeks and then throw them away after wearing them once? Certain externalities (e.g. environmental destruction) are not priced into these products - so it's about time that these fast fashion companies are being stopped from exploiting loopholes. Maybe this will encourage folks to use 2nd hand markets more, like Vinted or Deepop etc.
- ivanche 5y ago
  Well that was the idea behind this, right? To make todays "fast fashion" tomorrows "slow fashion".
lobocinza 5y ago
"eco-friendly and hard-wearing" These two can run opposed. I had two t-shirts stained, one brand new and one a decade old) and used the same product on both. The brand new completely discolored while the decade old didn't. Both are cotton so I guess the eco-friendly dye is to blame. Not so sustainable when I have to throw it in the trash with only a few uses.
nemo44x 5y ago
Literally the fashion police.
albertopv 5y ago
Two months ago I bought two jeans trousers from a local shop here in Italy. No big chain of stores, they have a pair of clothes stores in the area. Surely trousers were indeed cheap, no branded, made in Asia, but they both last 5 weeks, tearing apart in the same exact point in the same exact way after only a few uses. Never happened to me, not even with clothes bought from cheap clothes italian chain of stores like OVS.
halz 5y ago
The "Planned Obsolescence" documentary is (infuriatingly) great on how goods have degraded in quality over the years. https://youtu.be/wzJI8gfpu5Y https://youtu.be/wzJI8gfpu5Y
jl6 5y ago
I am certain there is a capitalistic equivalent of the economic calculation problem. In a planned economy, good decision making is impossible above a certain level of scale and complexity, because it’s infeasible to get the right information on all relevant factors and constraints to the decision makers. In a market economy, good purchase decisions are impossible because the supply chains are opaque and complex and by the time anyone has figured out the true quality of something, it’s no longer made in the same way.
Geee 5y ago
Why don't let customers decide? Just require manufacturers to be more transparent. I've argued long time that most regulations could be replaced with mandatory transparency. Manufacturers should be open about their quality and lifetime of their products. No one buys a bad product if they know about it.
im3w1l 5y ago
In my life this is a complete non-problem honestly. A friend just remarked how I have been wearing the same few t-shirts for years. They don't look worn or damaged either. Not any particularly fancy brand either. I just went to some store and picked a t-shirt that felt comfy and bought a dozen of em. For this reason I don't like these rules. Any rule has an administrative cost, and therefore rules should only be made as a last resort. I don't want some independent tailors or etsy creators wasting time checking boxes.
plandis 5y ago
Brussels bureaucrats sure seem like they want to build a moat for the large incumbent companies that startups will have an increasingly hard time disrupting due to increased costs.
formerkrogeremp 5y ago
I suspect that this bifurcation of expensive, high quality goods and cheap crud at the bottom in price sensitive markets is due to income inequality. People on the high end can afford the higher quality goods, and cheap items become cheap enough to cut out the middle market.

277 points by 0x54MUR41 5y ago

Classic UK poking their fingers on everything and anything.

I feel like the biggest hole, companies operating bins claiming that they will recycle clothes while they will send them to third-world country to be landfilled or burned, isn’t addressed in that law.

nonrandomstring 5y ago

More good stuff from Europe that I hope will radically change markets. Quality is a huge issue. It's changed my shopping habits because it's often better to simply go without than to buy cheap rubbish that lasts a week and causes you more inconvenience than if you'd never had it. I mostly buy vintage things that can be repaired now. In the UK brands like Marks and Spencer used to make clothes that lasted. Now they sell the same appallingly made sweatshop stuff. They still have their famous returns policy, and honour it, but I'd rather have something that lasts than something I can take back when it breaks. Guess they have a procurement issue because quality is uniformly low. Same with cheap electronic goods; pointless locked-down IoT cruft that cannot be repurposed or fixed and is landfill fodder straight after unboxing. We're drowning in cheap manufactured goods whose short lifespan and overhead (transport and disposal) dwarfs its functional utility.

WelcomeShorty 5y ago
As much as I share your sentiment, my daughters disagree. They buy quality handbags, jewellery and jackets, but everything else is a consumable. They do share their clothing amongst each other and a couple of close friends, but otherwise will hardly wear a combination more than once (outside that is). Here I am, buying all my cloths in 5 fold, since I do not like matching different items.
- FranzFerdiNaN 5y ago
  Lets be honest: your daughters are a victim of the cheap fashion brands and their succesful campaigns to brainwash people into thinking you need to have new clothed every week.
  - realPubkey 5y ago
    My whole generation is brainwashed with a shopping addiction.
    - 1over137 5y ago
      Your generation? I think most living generations have this addiction. :(
  - ushakov 5y ago
    they are victims of social media influencers, who encourage this behavior unsustainable and wasteful consumption the reason fast shopping exists, kids can’t afford new fashion item every week, but SHEIN and others make it so cheap and nice looking that makes this behavior possible
    - anthony_d 5y ago
      Maybe, but the social media influences I've seen are just as much victims as anyone else. The difference is they've embraced it more fully and figured out how to make money off it.
- hunter-gatherer 5y ago
  I wonder if consumable fashion is mostly a women's clothes issue??? I see this narrative told often, but I bought a couple pair of carharts and a few pair of jeans, a couple flannel shirts, and own 6 or 7 gildan cotten t-shirts. All of these I have owned more than 3 years and use one or two times a week. The t shirts are also my gym shirts. I have two pair of running shorts that have lost an almost unbelievably long time given the fact that I wear one or the other almost every day. None of my clothes look like they need replacing anytime soon. Except for socks, which for whatever mystery known but to god periodically vanish. My wife's clothing situation much more resembles your daughters I'm curious if other men here have cycle through clothes continously, and if so, how? Edit: spelling
loceng 5y ago
The trend I have seen with clothing brands is most often once they become popular, become a recognized "brand name" - often because of their high quality, good design, and relative affordability. Then the economies of scale "engineers" of business folks start to scale it by reducing costs (less quality control, lower quality materials, etc) to maximize profit per unit sold - milking the brand as quickly as possible to extract as much as they can as soon as they can. This leads towards killing the brand or where it just becomes at par with whatever the status quo ecosystem allows based on environmental costs like mall rental space, etc. Executives seem to know or are making the bet that brands may not stay popular for long as it may be fad buying and not a sustainable trend, or they simply know they can make more money individually/selfishly if they use these tactics - and hire people who use these tactics; why make $15+ million over 20 years when you maybe could milk a brand to death and get $10+ million in 5 years? What I wonder is though are there potential pitfalls of this for consumers? Have they or anyone done a study on cost changes, e.g. will costs increase substantially in short-term but perhaps that is more than made up on the tail end with the durability? Did they publish a list of known poor quality textiles, I imagine that would include such things as low thread count for the textile and perhaps for stitching as well? Does this impact certain styles of clothing that say due to their sheer nature?
- FredPret 5y ago
  This happens in other industries as well. Mass-market beer comes to mind. The solution, as I see it, starts with owners demanding long term stability in earnings; and a broader quality over quantity philosophy spreading generally.
  - ghaff 5y ago
    This would horrify some friends. But mass market beer is a very predictable and relatively inexpensive product that 95% or whatever of the market likes. I do not and am grateful there are so many alternatives that didn’t exist a few decades ago. But it’s not a low quality just because us beer at least somewhat snobs prefer something different.
    - 5y ago
Bayart 5y ago
There are a few excellent UK-made brands out there, although it's on the expensive side it's definitely quality stuff that lasts : Mackintosh, Drake's, Barbour (depending on the price range), Sunspel, Private White V.C., John Smedley, Colhay's etc. I'm personally a huge fan of S.E.H Kelly. And of course there are still the venerable shoe makers of Northampshire which in my opinion remain the best industrial ready-to-wear shoemaking in the world (with a few exceptions, namely Carmina and J.M. Weston) : Edward Green, Crockett & Jones, Cheaney, Church's, Grenson etc. I'm myself a regular Crockett & Jones customer as they make the only size + width combination I've found in ready-to-wear that matches my feet really well. Of course it's a rather militant way of looking at clothing and it's all pretty expensive stuff but : - Frankly it's affordable if you've got an engineer's comp. - It keeps its value well on the second-hand market.
- Xenoamorphous 5y ago
  But then if someone hears what a pair of Edward Green shoes or SEH Kelly coat costs they’d look at you like you’re insane. PS my C&J Islays are probably my favourite boots, and I’ve got a ventile raincoat from Private White. Some day I’ll def buy something from SEH Kelly, although most of their stuff might be too warm for Spain.
- yodelshady 5y ago
  The heuristic seems to be: have a brand name but *not* one you'll see on the high street. If it is on the high street, it's expensive in order to fund advertising, not higher quality.
  - Bayart 5y ago
    You've basically got it right when it comes to marking. All the brands I've mentionned, and really all the reputable clothing / shoeing companies, have a production cost that's around 50% of the retail price. Add in all the miscelanous costs and the final margin isn't that high. For the largest of them "marketing" is having a few stores in key areas (London, Paris, NY) and a stall at some events. If you take that formula and input marketing, you've got luxury companies : great craftsmanship at inflated prices.
juanani 5y ago
[dead]
vanilla-almond 5y ago
In the UK I still think Marks and Spencer (M&S) offer quality clothing at reasonable prices. They don't compete fully with 'fast fashion' prices but they have been affected by competition from other fast fashion retailers by offering their own 'value' lines. If you avoid the cheapest clothing lines at M&S, their mid-priced clothing is generally of longer-lasting and better quality. For example, you can buy organic cotton chinos and jeans in the price range £25-35 (approximately $35-45/€30-40). These are reasonable prices given the premium typically charged for organic clothing.
- skippyboxedhero 5y ago
  Yep, it is an odd comment because M&S have a relatively good supply chain. I think people assume that if anything breaks, it must have been made in a sweatshop. In reality, the reason why "fast fashion" exists isn't related to quality at all. You can buy t-shirts that cost £3 that will be as long lasting as anything 10x or 100x the price. I am not sure how people think t-shirts are made, there isn't some hidden secret of durability known only to companies that charge a lot. The reason "fast fashion" exists is because most retailers provide terrible value for money. Fast fashion charge significantly less for clothes made in the same factory, with the same materials and labour. That is it. So it is unsurprising this is occurring in Europe: luxury goods manufacturers there successfully lobbied for exemptions from Russian sanctions, they are a formidable lobbying force in Brussels, the aim of this is to stop competition from non-EU manufacturers (particularly from the UK and China). Classic EU. If you can't win, cheat. If you want to do more about this issue, just improve recycling...that is it. Done.
spicyjpeg 5y ago
This is all part of a larger phenomenon I like to call the "Amazon syndrome". The quality standard for products seems to be incredibly low nowadays. I see people happily buying whatever cheap Chinese junk Amazon dropshippers sell, for a "low" price that's usually 4-5x the price of the exact same item on AliExpress. Reviews are overwhelmingly positive because most people don't care about actual specs or functionality and give 5 stars as long as it's cheap and it works, even when the product is marked up by the dropshipper and leaves a lot to be desired. Reputable brands that used to make quality products now need to compete on price in a sea of "good enough" garbage, and many of them choose to do so by outsourcing manufacturing to the same Chinese factories that make the no-name stuff. Midrange products disappeared entirely and now the choice is between disposable landfill and ridiculously expensive high-end items. As someonce in a Reddit thread (?) once said: "The product that retails for $500 costs $5 more to manufacture than the low-end equivalent that sells for $20. If you try to find a middle ground and spend $100, you end up with the $20 product in a nice box."
- southerntofu 5y ago
  > Reputable brands that used to make quality products now need to compete on price I don't think it's just that. Many people (like myself) stopped buying "reputable" brands because they have betrayed their reputation. Nowadays when buying electromechanic devices even when putting 10x the price i have no clue if it's going to last more than 2 years (minimum warranty in EU) and that's a fucking awful problem. In my view, we need 20+ years warranty (minimum, i personally would argue for 50+) on all products mandated by law, then we can start to see some improvement. This is a public policy problem and as much as i hate the EU institutions they are the only entity i know doing anything about this very serious problem creating tons of waste/pollution.
  - b112 5y ago
    Quebec, a province in Canada, passed a law a few years back. Essentially, the language states that the product must last "a reasonable period of time" for its usage case. This is the new province wide, legislated warranty. Buy a washer, are a single man, use it once a week? It breaks in 15 years? Covered. Are a family of 8, wash 2x daily, it breaks after manufacture's stated warranty? Probably, not covered. This helps, because it stops parts that are designed to fail due to time, instead of usage, from destroying the product. There are a few government agencies which will help you with this too, instead of going to court, by merely a form to fill out.
bjelkeman-again 5y ago
There are smaller brands that try to be and are a lot better. They deserve attention. Trippen shoes from Germany make comfortable shoes that aren’t exactly main stream, but are repairable and used to offer a very reasonable refurbishment price (haven’t refurbished any for a bit). I have several pairs of 20+ years old shoes from them. https://en.trippen.com/t/men https://en.trippen.com/t/men Nudie jeans offer free repairs at their shops and 10+% discount for new jeans if they are not repairable, as trade-in. If you trade in, and they are usable, they sell as second hand. https://www.nudiejeans.com/repair-spots/#stores https://www.nudiejeans.com/repair-spots/#stores
- quickthrowman 5y ago
  > Trippen shoes You can just buy any Goodyear (or Blake) welted shoe to have rebuildable shoes, there are dozens of makers that offer more uh… conventional and mainstream styles of shoes anywhere from $200-$2500. England: Loake, Alfred Sargent, C&J, Trickers, Church’s, Edward Green, Saint Crispins, John Lobb US: Allen Edmonds, Alden, Rancourt, Red Wing, White’s, Nick’s, Grant Stone Canada: Viberg Spain: Meermin, Carmina Hungary: Vass
- viraptor 5y ago
  There's also Patagonia (not a smaller brand) https://www.patagonia.com.au/pages/worn-wear https://www.patagonia.com.au/pages/worn-wear They'll not only repair their clothes for free, even if you've been careless and damaged it yourself, but also you can pay them to repair other brands in their shop.
  - MrApathy 5y ago
    I see this line every so often that Patagonia will repair or replace damaged articles, but the one time I tried, I wasn't successful. I purchased a Tortentshell rain jacket and the laminate on the top of the hood started to peel after a year or so. I took it to a Patagonia store for inspection and they offered to recycle it for me. No repair, no free replacement, no offer of a discount on a replacement.
    - 5y ago
baybal2 5y ago
FredPret 5y ago
I’ve noticed this even with “nice” clothing brands like Banana Republic. I bough a shirt, and within two months it was ready for the garbage pile. I’ve since switched over to the even more expensive Lululemon, which seems vastly better. Time will tell. I’d rather have three very expensive shirts that fit great and last a decade than a tidal wave of garbage that costs the same in the end.
- adhesive_wombat 5y ago
  Timberland suckered me with their sustainable-fairtrade-robust vibe. I have never seen a pair of trousers disintegrate so fast in the wash, or a pair of jeans wear though at the knees so rapidly.
mytailorisrich 5y ago
This is a trade-off like for everything else. Fashion changes fast and therefore does it make sense to sell more expensive clothes that last? Many people want what is fashionable this season, not wear the same things for years. In terms of environmental impact and use of resources I suspect that there is a sweet spot between not lasting at all and very long lasting (like there probably is for appliances and about everything else that people will replace after x months/years anyway) Likewise, "fixable" may incur overheads that actually negate the a priori benefit.
yeetsfromhellL2 5y ago
The trouble is not only finding quality goods now, its that once you do they are way more expensive than they used to be since they now serve a smaller market. Not only are they trying to stay afloat with a smaller customer base, they're losing some of the economies of scale, so prices go up or quality goes down.
dazc 5y ago
Marks and Spencer are one of many brands that pivoted from quality to crap yet saw no significant decrease in customer loyalty.
maigret 5y ago
I once went to a cloth repair shop and asked what brand was better for long term. “None”, they said, “all of them are equally bad nowadays“. So no chance much to make it work over the market it seems.

madaxe_again 5y ago

I provided ecommerce services for a wide variety of U.K. and European fashion brands from 2006-2016, and one thing that always stood out was that about 10% of the customers of each brand would make up >50% of the revenue - be it shoes, garments, or accessories. This applied across other verticals, too, but in fashion the concentration was far more pronounced. The reason these customers had a higher per capita revenue was that they bought something pretty much every week of the year. The thing is, this kind of behaviour is akin to addiction - I recall in more than a few cases concerned partners or parents requesting intervention, and blocking or limiting of accounts - it was up to the retailer how they handled that - we just heard about the ones where they wanted us to do something. So - clamping down on fast fashion is no bad thing, however it addresses a symptom rather than a root cause, which is principally addictive shopping behaviours bought about by saturated and predatory marketing and depressed populations seeking solace in that momentary rush of dopamine when they hit purchase, waiting for a parcel to arrive like an addict waiting for a fix. I mean, hell, I’ve lived the behaviour. Never to the extremes that I’ve seen, but compulsive consumption is an easy if temporary quick fix for a hole in the soul. Fashion is the pinnacle of this, as it gives you not just the purchase rush, but the potential esteem boost from wearing your new garments. The problem remains elsewhere, and more fundamental.

jdrc 5y ago
I think consumerist isn't limited to fashion.
- madaxe_again 5y ago
  It isn’t, by any means, but it’s almost as concentrated in fashion as it is in gambling - you tend to have a fatter long tail and smaller ramp for other verticals. Shoes are the most “Pareto” category in consumer goods that I’ve seen. There are entire brands being propped up by a hard core who spend tens of thousands a year each on shoes.
ushakov 5y ago
i have this sort of hole-filling shopping too, yet the items i desire were expensive and made to last a lifetime

airjob 5y ago

For the last ten years I have been anticipating that Europe would become the Switzerland of the world, at a larger scale. For the worth and better. Sustainability is a big part of it and this kind of move as well as the platforms regulation give me hope.

naoqj 5y ago
In what way is Europe becoming like Switzerland? There is no direct democracy to begin with, more like the opposite.
vmception 5y ago
My mind doesn’t have a large enough heap for this recursive statement
refurb 5y ago
Horribly expensive, centered on financial services, great for hiding money and impossible to immigrate too? Not sure what you’re getting at?
- stackbutterflow 5y ago
  Offering some of the best quality of life on earth maybe.
  - refurb 5y ago
    Quality of life is pretty damn subjective isn't it?
    - danlugo92 5y ago
      I know Europe is not the only place with free healthcare, but, at least for me, free healthcare comes above [everything else]. Yeah sure, you can get insurance in other countries, but there WILL ALWAYS BE fine print, some random procedure and you're not covered, or out of pocket expense, etc. With free healthcare, there's no fine print, everything from a allergic reaction, to neurosurgery the cost will always be 0 no matter what.

k__ 5y ago

Half-OT Fast fashion seems to be one of the problems the metaverse could solve. In the pandemic, many people moved more and more of their social life online. Not 100% of it, but quite a bit more than before. If less people would buy real clothes every season and just show off digital clothes online, this could solve the overproduction issue. You can still signal being wealthy or stylish online, but nobody would actually have to sew all that stuff.

jdrc 5y ago
it's true that in second life most people spend on clothing
vmception 5y ago
Yeah in my projects lately a lot of the branding has been done with wearables for digital avatars People want to be “in” and will pay or perform tasks to get the things that show theyre in Great human coordination tool

adolph 5y ago

> Manufacturers will have to ensure their clothes are eco-friendly and hard-wearing. Very little of substance in the article. I wonder if this is a “baptists and bootleggers” moment for greens and Euro clothing industry?

JimBlackwood 5y ago

Nice. I’ve been trying to only buy my clothes from brands that are sustainable. The quality of clothes has been great too. https://www.fairify.io/en/brands/ https://www.fairify.io/en/brands/ has been a great help finding sustainable brands. A bit sad Levi’s is only a C though, I like their jeans.

Bayart 5y ago
Nowadays most Levi's jeans are just stuff made in cheap labour countries with poor cloth. I think they still made some selvedge jeans in the US under their Made & Crafted label. If you want good Made in the US jeans, look at Gustin. But nowadays the most renown manufacturers are Japanese, like Momotaro.

dirtyid 5y ago

Unless substantial price increase, I don't see this changing behavior much. Third world landfills will have slightly more durable textiles with better stitching.

paganel 5y ago

As a side-effect this will also increase the prices of the cheapest clothes available on the market, and as such would in effect be a regressive tax.

naoqj 5y ago
- jotm 5y ago
- rozenmd 5y ago
  They get subsidised by the individual countries to soften the blow? Think I'm missing your point.
Proven 5y ago
oliwarner 5y ago
It will also mean a healthier used market with modern garments that will last years and years. New cars are disproportionately expensive too. Shrugs. I think it's okay that not everyone can afford everything new, as long as they can afford enough to not be further disadvantaged.
- PolygonSheep 5y ago
  I too think the poor should be driving clapped out beaters and wearing secondhand clothes. It builds character!
  - oliwarner 5y ago
    There's a facetiousness to your reply that really doesn't help the discussion. My response requires thinking about clothes in a different way, but that's the sort of thinking we all need to engage with. Since the 50s we've seen races to the bottom with clothes, homeware, furniture. It's all lovely shiny and new and when we've decided we need to change it, we burn or throw into a hole in the ground. Fashion has invented its own mechanisms and sub-industry to make sure things aren't just disposable, but that people want to throw them away. It's disgusting. We don't do that with cars. We demand that cars are serviceable. Older cars doesn't carry stigma (unless they're clapped out). We need to start demanding the same from everything we buy.

scns 5y ago

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUD_Jeans https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUD_Jeans A satisfied customer

refurb 5y ago
That seems like a marketing gimmick? I mean denim is already a renewable resource. Recycling old denim costs energy just like producing new denim. It’s like people who feel good about putting plastic in the recycling bin even though most of it ends up in landfills.
- xxs 5y ago
  I guess the major issue with 'plastics' is that they are wildly different. Polyethylene (PE, LDPE - plastic bags, HDPE - pipes], Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene - ABS [Lego, cheap tools shell], and polycarbonate (PC plexiglass, quality tools] would be pretty much the same (just plastic) for most people. Yet, even sorting them is expensive, then the quality and degradation of the source material is unknown, so recycling them for new products is not very feasible.
- scns 5y ago
  You can talk it down if you want, it is easy, did that for years. I like that they are doing something that makes them earn less but has a positive effect. Cotton production needs huge amount of water. Would it be better to burn or throw those jeans in a landfill? Got some sweaters by [0]. The label says how many PET-bottles got recycled for it. [0] https://www.craghoppers.com/ https://www.craghoppers.com/
  - refurb 5y ago
    What do you mean “earn less”? If anything they might earn more.
    - scns 5y ago
      They earn less, since recycling costs money.

mobjack 5y ago

How do they define fast fashion? What makes it different than a budget T-shirt that you wear multiple times? Fast fashion is more about how clothes are marketed than the inherent properties of the clothing itself.

hypertele-Xii 5y ago
The inherent properties of the clothing itself are designed for how they are marketed. It has everything to do with fast fashion. It's vertically-integrated planned obsolesence.
refurb 5y ago
Yes it’s somewhat odd. At least how I learned about it was the fast turnaround from design to store to capitalize on a trend. Instead of it taking 6-9 months from initial design to manufacture to store placement, you could design quickly, outsource to global manufacturers and have new designs in store in 2-3 months. Not sure how that’s more wasteful than traditional clothing. It all depends on often you buy new clothes?
- maigret 5y ago
  It’s especially targeting brands like Primark which are incredibly cheap and poor quality. Clothes costs a few euros and are intended to be worn only a few times.

jaggill 5y ago

Firstly, Europe leading the way as ever in legislation and regulations on ESG. Secondly, fast fashion has severe social and compliance impacts and that is often overlooked (the environmental and climate piece is well understood). Whats needed is a more homogeneous way to measure climate and labor impact especially in fashion. Newer, sustainable-focussed brands are taking charge and measuring and publishing their impacts.

riidom 5y ago
It kinda starts to look like that the EU is cleaning up with laws behind USA's turbo capitalism mess. They could start to optimize this ritual a bit...

quickthrowman 5y ago

I’m able to find good quality shoes and boots, jackets, watches, and bags. I can’t for the life of me find quality chinos, polos, t-shirts, sweaters, and other basic articles of clothing. I’m fine with Levi jeans, but all other clothing items seem to be crappy cotton/spandex blends of poor quality fabric, no matter if you spend $15 or $150 on a garment. It’s very frustrating, I’d rather just buy quality stuff that lasts, but I’m unable to find any quality clothing. Hopefully this legislation encourages clothing manufacturers to use quality fabrics and construction again.

viraptor 5y ago
I've not found that for the heavier clothes. If you have money to spend, outdoors clothes shops will sell you awesome quality clothes. (What's yours local equivalent of Kathmandu or Patagonia brands) But I totally agree on t-shirts - I've been trying to find good ones for a while and each company ended up being a disappointment. American Apparel seems to survive the longest, but I got a recommendation to try one of the online-ordered tailored items. I've used those for shirts and was very happy in the past... it seems like an overkill for t-shirts but I'll give it a go.

layo 5y ago

This fast-fashion shit has ruined everything. Zara is a spanish brand that around 20 years ago used to produce high quality garments, remember having a lot of shirts, sweater and pants lasting from 5 to 10 years .... After going global they shit everything up .... Always the same issue with capitalism and globalization

mike128 5y ago

If I was making policies I would oblige manufacturers of anything to take back and recycle their product at the end of life. This would make sure products/packagings are made to be recyclable and/or biodegradable. This should be applied not only to clothing, but really everything. I would expect the first result would be no single use plastics anywhere. Obviously the cost of the change would be transferred to consumers on the purchase price. However we are already paying it in a deferred manner with the degradation of the natural world.

thechao 5y ago
Yeah — I think a “you sell it, you scrap it” law would de-externalize a lot of really harmful end-user sales: not just for source manufacturers, but every middle-man in between.
- hetspookjee 5y ago
  Not sure if that is enough given that most product returns are destroyed - from iPads to brand new clothes. So than that rule is already out I think? Though an extension that that is forbidden in some sense should be fair. Or a rule that forbids the relative amount of trash produced by a company?
  - magicalhippo 5y ago
    Here in Norway we have a law to handle recycling and waste handling of electrical equipment[1]. It requires importers and producers of electrical and electronic equipment to be a member of a return company like Norsirk or RENAS[2], directly funding the collection, recycling and waste handling. Something similar could be introduced for other product groups as well like clothes. [1]: https://norsirk.no/produsentansvar/lover-og-regler/om-avfallsforskriften-for-ee-produkter/ https://norsirk.no/produsentansvar/lover-og-regler/om-avfall... [2]: https://renas.no/ https://renas.no/
  - thechao 5y ago
    The customer ends up holding the negative exernality with little ability to affect the upstream pipeline. By sending the waste "back up the pipe" it becomes each middle-company's problem. The point being that each company now has to consider how to get rid of their own generated waste. It de-externalizes the waste problem. If they choose to put the waste in to a landfill, then so be it: they have to pay to do that.

mynameishere 5y ago

I'm always glad to learn that I was very moral all along about something. In this case, my 10 year old, falling-apart sweatshirt that I wear every day is real, real virtuous. (I kind of suspected it all along, to be sure.) easier to repair Yeah, put down your phones and pick up your needle and thread, ladies. Good luck with that. Maybe the 19th century wasn't so bad.

wallfacer120 5y ago
"Yeah, put down your phones and pick up your needle and thread, ladies. Good luck with that. Maybe the 19th century wasn't so bad." I am glad that you recognized that idea that modern clothing should be "repairable" as insane and regressive. Its a pretty good demonstration of why alot of "anti-materialist/consumerist" rhetoric is, in my estimate, actually harmful. They're making a policy out of reducing the standard of living.

mrbeanhead 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

mrbeanhead 5y ago

EU parliament members who can afford Brioni suits and haute couture for their families can’t be in charge of making rules like these.

throw93232 5y ago

We could abolish face masks. Every person uses couple every day. Most masks are not recycled. And it is micro fiber that accumulates in animal tissues!

01100011 5y ago

Fast fashion sucks but this is an odd thing to prioritize given the situation Europe now finds itself in. With a massive energy shortfall, Europe is likely entering the worst economic period since WWII. I am proud of them for sticking to their principles, I just think they should be focused on the existential threats they are currently facing.

orobinson 5y ago
I’d argue addressing things like fast fashion is focusing on the existential threat that we are all facing. It’s just one of the many things in society that needs to be curtailed if we want to bring our usage of planetary resources back into safe boundaries.
sputr 5y ago
Legislative systems are massive and employ a small army of people, and such proposals take years to develop. Their current focus will become apparent in a few years.
dgellow 5y ago
Developing legislation like this one on fast-fashion has little to do with management of current events. It’s a very slow and long process done in the background and doesn’t take away focus from energy and economical issues.

hwers 5y ago

There's a big part of me that agrees with this. I am a bit worried though that we're making it harder and harder for new people coming into the world to make new startups, with more and more rules like this imposing a higher entry cost. Feels like we're just going to have massive companies in the future who are able to navigate all this, and too high a barrier of entry for new companies.

jdasdf 5y ago
That's because we are. This helps no one.

itronitron 5y ago

I highly recommend the book "Worn: A People's History of Clothing" by Sofi Thanhauser, for those interested in learning more about environmental impacts of the clothing/textile industry and its history.

goethes_kind 5y ago

Somebody should setup the uncool and reliable brand of male clothing. I want the Toyota Corolla of male clothing. I do not care about fashion. I want to wear timeless long lasting clothes. Don't care about branding either. Just somebody please setup a shop where I do not have to worry about quality, but is also not a shop that pretends that every item of clothing is hand tailored by an Italian craftsman and costs half a thousand euros.

void-pointer 5y ago
Uni-Qlo.
- Etheryte 5y ago
  I haven't tried any other items from them, but I own one sweater from them and I have no bad words to say about it. The quality is superb and it has lasted me a long time. Anecdotal experience, but so far a good one.
  - layer8 5y ago
    > lasted me a long time That only indicates what the quality was a long time ago. I’ve seen far too many brands and products go from good quality to poor quality over the years. Good quality sold N years ago says nothing about the quality currently sold, unfortunately.
- duncanc4 5y ago
  I found their jeans to not be good quality. I had a pair get holes after one year of use.
  - elric 5y ago
    One year? That's pretty good by my standards. I suffer a crotch blowout roughly every 3 months or so. Jeans, apparently, are not made for people with thighs, nor for people who enjoy sitting cross legged. And certainly not both.

janmarsal 5y ago

I just hope this doesn't have any (un)intended consequences that will replace natural materials like wool and cotton with synthetic fabrics or something equally ridiculous.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

axg11 5y ago

Fast fashion isn’t the only type of clothing that exists today. I think it’s shortsighted to deride fast fashion without understanding why it’s so popular. Every consumer in the EU, today, has the choice to pay for higher quality and more sustainable clothing. Fashion is unsustainable because the average consumer doesn’t care about the sustainability. They want cheap clothes. That’s it. We can choose to shift the negative externalities back to the consumer or manufacturer, but let’s not forget that people already have the choice to vote with their wallets and they’re resoundingly voting for fast fashion.

lobocinza 5y ago
Only if it was that easy. The consumer lacks information. He can't make a rational choice when he is bombarded by disinformation (marketing claims).
- axg11 5y ago
  Right. Let’s assume everyone is ignorant and make decisions for them. The plebes don’t know better. Big brother will help you lead a better life. The average person is very aware that fast fashion is unsustainable. They just don’t care enough to pay more. They are making a rational choice.
  - untitaker_ 5y ago
    I don't think anybody disputes that the choices made by consumers are rational. The question is, how many of them are actually satisfied with the options the market makes them choose from?
  - lobocinza 5y ago
    How so? Clothes are cheap to manufacture and expensive due to marketing (publicity and distribution). I as a consumer I'm powerless because product from brand X is not necessarily more sustainable or durable that similar product from fast-fashion just because it costs 5 times more.
untitaker_ 5y ago

donatj 5y ago

I feel like for fast fashion specifically, this is a move in entirely the wrong direction. Fashion trends change quickly, a lot of people buy clothes with full intentions of wearing them for a couple weeks until they’re out of style and then just throw them away. Making fast fashion to last years is putting more valuable materials in the dump. Without a major change in peoples buying habits, it’s just making things worse.

uxcolumbo 5y ago
If the quality goes up - prices will probably have to go up as well, which means potential behavioral change, i.e. can't buy clothes every 2 weeks anymore.
- donatj 5y ago
  So let the lower classes eat cake when it comes to fashion?
  - uxcolumbo 5y ago
    Why is it necessary to buy clothes every 2 weeks and then throw them away after wearing them once? Certain externalities (e.g. environmental destruction) are not priced into these products - so it's about time that these fast fashion companies are being stopped from exploiting loopholes. Maybe this will encourage folks to use 2nd hand markets more, like Vinted or Deepop etc.
ivanche 5y ago
Well that was the idea behind this, right? To make todays "fast fashion" tomorrows "slow fashion".

lobocinza 5y ago

"eco-friendly and hard-wearing" These two can run opposed. I had two t-shirts stained, one brand new and one a decade old) and used the same product on both. The brand new completely discolored while the decade old didn't. Both are cotton so I guess the eco-friendly dye is to blame. Not so sustainable when I have to throw it in the trash with only a few uses.

nemo44x 5y ago

Literally the fashion police.

albertopv 5y ago

Two months ago I bought two jeans trousers from a local shop here in Italy. No big chain of stores, they have a pair of clothes stores in the area. Surely trousers were indeed cheap, no branded, made in Asia, but they both last 5 weeks, tearing apart in the same exact point in the same exact way after only a few uses. Never happened to me, not even with clothes bought from cheap clothes italian chain of stores like OVS.

halz 5y ago

The "Planned Obsolescence" documentary is (infuriatingly) great on how goods have degraded in quality over the years. https://youtu.be/wzJI8gfpu5Y https://youtu.be/wzJI8gfpu5Y

jl6 5y ago

I am certain there is a capitalistic equivalent of the economic calculation problem. In a planned economy, good decision making is impossible above a certain level of scale and complexity, because it’s infeasible to get the right information on all relevant factors and constraints to the decision makers. In a market economy, good purchase decisions are impossible because the supply chains are opaque and complex and by the time anyone has figured out the true quality of something, it’s no longer made in the same way.

Geee 5y ago

Why don't let customers decide? Just require manufacturers to be more transparent. I've argued long time that most regulations could be replaced with mandatory transparency. Manufacturers should be open about their quality and lifetime of their products. No one buys a bad product if they know about it.

im3w1l 5y ago

In my life this is a complete non-problem honestly. A friend just remarked how I have been wearing the same few t-shirts for years. They don't look worn or damaged either. Not any particularly fancy brand either. I just went to some store and picked a t-shirt that felt comfy and bought a dozen of em. For this reason I don't like these rules. Any rule has an administrative cost, and therefore rules should only be made as a last resort. I don't want some independent tailors or etsy creators wasting time checking boxes.

plandis 5y ago

Brussels bureaucrats sure seem like they want to build a moat for the large incumbent companies that startups will have an increasingly hard time disrupting due to increased costs.

formerkrogeremp 5y ago

I suspect that this bifurcation of expensive, high quality goods and cheap crud at the bottom in price sensitive markets is due to income inequality. People on the high end can afford the higher quality goods, and cheap items become cheap enough to cut out the middle market.