Yesterday's trend setters, today's followers: luxury brands take inspiration from sustainable fashion

News outlets recently reported that luxury conglomerate, LVMH was launching a deadstock online marketplace for approved designers enabling them to purchase unused fabrics from their portfolio of brands including Marc Jacobs, Christian Dior, Louis Vuitton and more. Sustainable brands, such as Pop London, have been doing this since their inception taking upcycling further than fabrics to include trims and accessories needed in the production of clothing and bag collections.

The French luxury industry has initiated this move less as a nod to climate change and more as a demand from French authorities banning the harmful destruction of unsold and returned stock. In recent years there have been reports of Burberry incinerating over £25 million worth of stock to maintain their brand value, luxury Swiss watchmakers destroying over $500 million to again retain their brand value. It makes me wonder whether their management and buying teams understand their function as the scales of losses they are prepared to absorb hurts the environment and their profits. The deadstock fabrics will only be made available to haute couture and approved designers.

Still, for us at Pop, normalising the use of deadstock fabric and even making it aspirational will, we hope, lead to greater acceptance and a normalisation of considering the environmental impact in fashion. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if other goverments followed suit, forcing companies to consider their environmental impact?