Vestiaire Collective just banned fast fashion

According to some it is a move to improve its positioning, according to others it is genuine responsibility, and according to still others (and we will return to these shortly) the decision shifts but does not change the issue. Be that as it may, yesterday, Vestiaire Collective announced its decision to ban fast fashion from its platform starting with brands such as Asos, Shein, Burton, Fashion Nova, Pretty Little Thing, Missguided, Topman, Topshop, and Tezenis. At the moment, Zara remains among the brands allowed on the platform, and the official list does not include other European fast fashion names (the initiative seems to be more focused on the Anglo-Saxon world), which in any case could be banned in the future. The president and co-founder of the platform, Fanny Moizant, said: 

«We wanted to reduce waste in people’s wardrobes, and that waste is mainly coming from fast fashion because it has no value, and as a consequence very little resale value».

Over the course of three years from now, Vestiaire Collective will broaden the proscription of fast fashion to include more brands and using the advice of outside experts to establish universally valid criteria for distinguishing the proverbial chaff from the wheat. The criteria will cover product quality, emissions for which brands are responsible, and working conditions. The idea is to encourage more responsible consumption habits even if in doing so the platform prevents the same fast fashion products from being given a second life-according to some by speeding up rather than preventing their disposal. In this regard, Liz Ricketss, who heads The Or Foundation, dedicated to solving the problem of discarded clothing that ends up almost all, and inevitably, in Ghana, in Accra specifically, where 15 million used items from around the world arrive each year, said Vestiaire «can ban fast fashion on their platform… Kantamanto can’t ban it from coming into Ghana». And this is why the resell platform also said it is applying pressure on European politicians to create a stricter regulation for fashion waste disposal.