Is circular fashion in peril With 61.8 million Zara items listed on Vinted, a well-known online marketplace for used goods, a complicated picture of consumer behavior, rapid fashion, and retail sustainability initiatives is painted. Comparably, 59.7 million products from H&M, 21.8 million from Shein, 21 million from Primark, and 10.2 million from Mango are listed on the marketplace.
On the one hand, this number highlights the enormous production capacity of Zara and other multinational behemoths, as well as their hegemony in the fast fashion sector. Like its predecessors, the Spanish shop owned by Inditex is well-known for its ability to react swiftly to fashion trends and for changing styles frequently. The sheer number of products on Vinted, one of the numerous resale platforms, indicates that buyers are, in fact, buying these clothes in enormous quantities, and that these items, moreover, have a limited lifespan of appeal for the buyer.
brief duration of desirability Is circular fashion in peril
The increasing popularity of these products on resale sites suggests that circular fashion is becoming more and more popular. It seems that consumers are becoming more aware of the benefits of prolonging the life of their apparel rather than throwing it away after a short while. This change is in line with more general sustainability objectives and may be viewed as a step in the right direction toward lessening the environmental impact of fashion. However, the fundamental idea of cyclical fashion should be that well-made garments endure beyond a single season, rather than fast fashion companies producing hundreds of millions of primarily polyester garments annually that end up unsold.
The number of Zara products published on Vinted during 77 days between March and June was monitored by fashion entrepreneur Stuart Trevor, the creator of the high street brand All Saints and the sustainable vintage brand Stuart Trevor. According to Mr. Trevor’s data, which he shared on LinkedIn, the number of things climbed by an average of 100,000 every day, from 52.4 million at the end of March to 61 million in mid-June.
The state of affairs begs the question of how well these secondhand markets can really address ecological issues. Although prolonging the lifespan of clothing is advantageous, the sheer quantity of goods indicates that overproduction and overconsumption are still major problems. One could argue that since reselling products is so simple, it could unintentionally lead to more consumption since people would feel less bad about buying new things if they know they will sell them later.
Reselling could promote consumption.
Vinted and other used marketplaces will probably continue to play a more important role as the fashion sector struggles with its environmental impact. Although they provide some relief from fashion waste, more extensive modifications to patterns of production, consumption, and disposal are required to attain real sustainability in the industry. For instance, Mr. Trevor’s namesake label carefully reimagines clothing that has been patched, printed, sprayed, re-cut, washed, or embroidered rather than making new ones from vintage pieces.
In the end, the abundance of fast-fashion and Zara items on Vinted is a reflection of the intricate interactions that exist in the contemporary fashion industry between corporate social responsibility, consumer behavior, and environmental concerns. Retailers and consumers alike will need to reevaluate how they approach the production, usage, and disposal of clothing as the need for more environmentally friendly practices grows.
The amount of fast fashion’s influence on secondary markets is concerning, as evidenced by the 61.8 million Zara products that are listed on Vinted. The sheer volume points to a rise in disposable fashion, which could undermine circular fashion’s sustainability objectives by sustaining the are cycle of overproduction over and quick consumption.
