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Meet The New Brand That Gives 90 Per Cent Of Its Profits To Charity

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Shafiq Hassan and Ben Matthews speak to Vogue about Ninety Percent, their new ethical brand that turns the traditional fashion business model on its head.

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The apparel industry has a big problem. At a time when the economy is growing, unemployment is low, wages are rebounding and consumers are eager to buy, Americans are spending less and less on clothing.

The woes of retailers are often blamed on Amazon.com Inc. and its vise grip on e-commerce shoppers. Consumers glued to their phones would rather browse online instead of venturing out to their local malls, and that's crushed sales and hastened the bankruptcies of brick-and-mortar stalwarts from American Apparel to Wet Seal.

But that's not the whole story. The apparel industry seems to have no solution to the dwindling dollars Americans devote to their closets. Many upstarts promising to revolutionize the industry drift away with barely a whimper. Who needs fashion these days when you can express yourself through social media? Why buy that pricey new dress when you could fund a weekend getaway instead?

Apparel has simply lost its appeal. And there doesn't seem to be a savior in sight. As a result, more and more apparel companies-from big-name department stores to trendy online startups- are folding.

Fighting for your dollars

Average annual U.S. consumer spending by category

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Sources: 2016 Consumer Expenditures Survey, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

The ingredients for this demise have been brewing for decades. In 1977, clothing accounted for 6.2 percent of U.S. household spending, according to government statistics. Four decades later, it's plummeted to half that.

Apparel is being displaced by travel, eating out and activities-what's routinely lumped together as "experiences"-which have grown to 18 percent of purchases. Technology alone, including data charges and media content, accounts for 3.4 percent of spending. That now tops all clothing and footwear expenditures.

Several reasons are behind this shift. Some are beyond the control of apparel companies, as societal changes drove different shopping behavior. But missteps by these companies along the way have hastened the death of clothing.

No one needs to buy a separate work wardrobe anymore.

It used to be that office workers needed suits and ties or pleated pants, long skirts and heels to get through the week. By the early 1990s, that seemed to change. The genesis is debatable, but many chalk it up to tech firms in Silicon Valley pushing a business-casual look dominated by khakis. That trickled into other industries, as casual Fridays became common. Now, office apparel is just as casual on Monday as on Friday for many workers.

Over the past five years, there has been a 10 percentage point spike in employers that permit casual dress any day of the week. The upshot of this is that Americans increasingly need just one wardrobe, because there is so little differentiation between what people wear to work and on the weekends.

Source: IBISWorld

Neckties are disappearing, even in industries such as finance. Sneakers can be worn to any occasion, including weddings and religious services. And about half of Americans say they can wear jeans to their professional offices, according to a survey by NPD Group.

It's easy to see why this is bad news for apparel companies. When you cut out an entire category of attire, there's less need to buy new clothes when fashions change. When there's a hot new color or pattern, maybe a twentysomething buys one new blouse to stay on trend and wears it to work and out at night. Before, she might have purchased two pieces, one for each setting.

Fast-fashion companies and off-price retailers are putting pressure on prices.

There's been general deflation in the clothing industry. Apparel has become cheaper to make in recent years, especially as more production shifts to less expensive labor markets.

Take a pair of men's Levi's 501 original-fit jeans. The price of this wardrobe staple used to steadily climb, but no longer. They cost $58 in 2009, then rose to $64 three years later, only to fall back down to $59.50 last year.

This downward price pressure coincides with the emergence of low-cost, fast-fashion retailers in the U.S. Walmart and Target have long conditioned Americans that they can get items they want without spending a lot. Now, retailers such as H&M can mimic runway fashions for $35, or men's jeans for $25, and can typically beat other retailers to market with trendy designs.

For years, this seemed like a recipe for success. The chain expanded rapidly in the U.S. and generated $3.2 billion last year. Its growth coincided with the rapid expansion of fast-fashion competitors Forever 21 and Zara, too.

But cracks and chasms are emerging in fast-fashion's success story. While the number of U.S. H&M locations is still growing, the pace of new store openings is at a two-decade low. The retailer has struggled to clear out products that shoppers didn't want, in part because customers are skipping messy stores in favor of a streamlined online experience.

Retailers and traditional fashion trendsetters are losing influence to social media celebrities.

The fashion industry used to have a lot of sway over how people dressed. Retailers, magazines and high-end designers were fashion kingmakers. From their lofty perches, they dictated a season's trends, and shoppers largely abided. A decade ago, teens wore Abercrombie & Fitch from head to toe.

But in today's consumer-driven economy, social media influencers often call the shots. These online personalities build followings with posts of their outfits, makeup routines and lifestyles. And they're less loyal to upscale brands.

An Instagram celebrity might combine Tory Burch, T.J. Maxx finds, consignment wares and basics from Target. Consumers have discovered they can invest in certain pieces and buy runway knockoffs to put together a unique, selfie-worthy look. With smartphones, these same shoppers easily compare prices, even using apps to snap a picture and find a cheaper alternative.

A navy tee for every budget

Sources: Company websites, Farfetch, listed price on Jan. 30, 2018

Retailers are devoting more of their marketing spending to digital ads, developing a social media image, paying for promoted posts and conscripting influencers to endorse their products. The hope is that these ads seem more authentic and intimate than a television ad featuring a celebrity.

But because there are now millions of tastemakers online-with a hodgepodge of aesthetics-it's harder for new trends to really break through. That's made many apparel brands gun-shy and less prone to taking design risks. Designers used to spend months working on a collection of boundary-pushing styles in an attempt to make a statement for the brand. The variety came with the risk of sinking a lot of time and money into a design that flops. To cut costs and speed up products that are known to sell, many brands now buy fabrics in bulk that can be made into multiple designs and patterns, resulting in fewer, "safer" options for consumers. With fewer fashion changes, there are fewer reasons to replenish wardrobes.

Micro-trends tend to flare up and flame out quickly, leaving larger trends in place for a longer time. Take skinny jeans, which roared onto the fashion scene in 2006 and haven't left. They're more distressed than ever, but the silhouette remains the same.

Companies claiming to be the future of retailing have struggled.

When you consider all these varied pressures on the clothing industry, it's not surprising that apparel store closures peaked last year. This doesn't simply reflect a shift to online shopping. E-commerce startups were founded to take advantage of the disruption in retail. But even they have stumbled, a sign of the deeper problems plaguing apparel.

Online darling NastyGal went bankrupt in 2017. Others have sold out to established retailers, rather than making it on their own. That includes Bonobos, the once-hot menswear brand that was bought by Walmart last year.

Stitch Fix Inc., an e-commerce clothing seller that was founded in 2011, has been an exception. The retailer pairs algorithms and data to select customized outfits for its subscribers, giving shoppers a feeling of personalization and an easy, at-home experience. The company had its debut on the Nasdaq Stock Market in November, and the shares have gained 34 percent. Experts have said more retailers should learn from Stitchfix's ability to leverage technology for customization, though they face the added challenges of a store base that e-commerce companies largely avoid.

Even if retailers can thread that needle, the underlying problem of weak demand is expected to dog the apparel industry for years, meaning more store closures and more bankruptcies lie ahead-with or without Amazon.

"It's a time of transformation, and it ain't pretty. It never is," said Jan Kniffen, founder of the consulting firm J. Rogers Kniffen Worldwide Enterprises in New York.

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The apparel industry has a big problem. At a time when the economy is growing, unemployment is low, wages are rebounding and consumers are eager to buy, Americans are spending less and less on clothing. The woes of retailers are often blamed on Amazon.com Inc. and its vise grip on e-commerce shoppers.

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Chances are high that, like me, you probably have a little stack of clothes somewhere in your closet destined for the thrift store. Maybe you're trimming down to get rid of excess stuff, removing items that don't fit or making good on a new year's resolution. But if you think these old clothes go on to good homes from the thrift store, you may be in for a rude surprise.

Most thrift stores sort through their donations and keep only the nicest items, sending the rest on to garment wholesalers who in turn repackage them for sale elsewhere - most commonly for use by textile recyclers. These companies take unwanted clothes of all shapes, sizes and colors, slice and dice them and sell the fabric for use in an assortment of other products, like insulation and paper.

But if you think this is a great, eco-friendly solution to the problem, I have more bad news for you.

We currently have a surplus of used clothing that has outstripped demand from textile recyclers. They can't keep pace on the intake and processing side, and they can't sell their products at prices that offset the costs of doing business. Some of those unwanted donated clothes may be ending up right in the dump, and that's bad for the environment.

It's also hurts many emerging economies. The textile industries in some developing countries are struggling to gain a foothold because of the large quantities of used clothes shipped in from places like Europe and the United States. It's extremely difficult to run a cost-effective company when bales of bargain basement used clothes are flooding the market. Some countries have actually started curtailing these imports in an effort to protect and develop their textile industries, with an eye to economic empowerment and independence.

While people have been ringing alarm bells about the used clothing situation in recent years, some evidence seems to suggest the problem is getting worse. That's in part because some countries are limiting imports, making it harder for companies in the West to find a market - the U.S. alone exports $575.5 million in used clothes annually.

But it's also because people are buying a lot of new clothes - and many of them are extremely cheap, which encourages them to keep buying more. Some of these garments are made poorly, falling apart within a few wears, but for buyers with lots of disposable income, it doesn't matter; they can pick up something new at a chain store whenever they feel like it.

Charities are noticing an uptick in donations, with clothes ranging from never worn to barely wearable. As they try to process more and more donated garments, the textile recyclers they work with are struggling too. In other words, it's becoming a vicious cycle. They can't keep up with the supply, which is radically lowering prices, and that means that all the extra has to go ... somewhere - like the dump or the incinerator.

The problems with fast fashion are myriad - labor exploitation remains a major concern - but this also illustrates the fallout of an extremely big industry that doesn't behave ethically. Fortunately, there's something you can do about it: You can change the way you shop, seeking well-made garments in timeless cuts and styles that you can wear again and again through the years. Consider getting some foundation pieces on the higher end and using fun scarves, socks and jewelry to keep refreshing your look.

As a person with a pretty unusually-shaped body, I always get frustrated when I hear "just buy nice things and wear them forever," because I actually have trouble finding them, and I know I'm not alone. I'm here to tell you that you can save a ton of money - and clothes - with some simple tailoring.

If you're intimidated by hemming your own garments, adding pleats and darts or taking other steps to make clothing fit you better, look up a local tailor or seamstress. Their rates are often very reasonable - and totally worth it. You'd be amazed by how a little sewing or darning can totally revitalize something that looked like it was on its last legs.
Photo Credit: Leighann Renee/Unsplash

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Fast Fashion Is Overwhelming the Used Clothing Market | Care2 Causes

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Chances are high that, like me, you probably have a little stack of clothes somewhere in your closet destined for the thrift store. Maybe you're trimming down to get rid of excess stuff, removing items that don't fit or making good on a new year's resolution.

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True cost

This is a story about clothing. It's about the clothes we wear, the people who make them, and the impact the industry is having on our world. The price of clothing has been decreasing for decades, while the human and environmental costs have grown dramatically. The True Cost is a groundbreaking documentary film that pulls back the curtain on the untold story and asks us to consider, who really pays the price for our clothing?

Filmed in countries all over the world, from the brightest runways to the darkest slums, and featuring interviews with the world's leading influencers including Stella McCartney, Livia Firth and Vandana Shiva, The True Cost is an unprecedented project that invites us on an eye opening journey around the world and into the lives of the many people and places behind our clothes.

Where to watch: Netflix, iTunes and Amazon prime.

Walmart: The High Cost of Low Price

a 2005 documentary film by director Robert Greenwald and Brave New Films. The film presents a negative picture of Wal-Mart's business practices through interviews with former employees, small business owners, and footage of Wal-Mart executives.

The documentary argues that Wal-Mart underpays its workers, paying them an average of $17,000 per year (in 2005 dollars). Where to watch: Youtube

The Machinists

A vivid and moving documentary in which the personal stories of three female Bangladeshi garment workers and the boss of a fledgling trade union in Dhaka intersect to portray the human cost of western high street fashion.
Have a film or tv show to share that people need to know about? Leave us a comment below!
This entry was tagged documentary, the machinists, true cost, Walmart. Bookmark the permalink.

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3 eye opening fast fashion documentaries - Trusted Clothes

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This is a story about clothing. It's about the clothes we wear, the people who make them, and the impact the industry is having on our world. The price of clothing has been decreasing for decades, while the human and environmental costs have grown dramatically.

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Why donating your clothes isn't as helpful as you think

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You might feel good about donating your old clothes, but nobody actually needs them. Part of the problem is fast fashion. Experts say the solution is to stop buying.

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If you've been to a mall recently you might have spotted something new. Clothing donation bins are popping up in more and more retail chains.

Some of the biggest names in fashion have launched take-back programs. They want you to donate your unwanted clothes, shoes, curtains, even underwear. In some cases, shoppers get a coupon or discount on a future purchase.

Marketplace surveyed the labels on retailers' in-store donation bins and found they include a number of reuse and recycling claims - including phrases like "creating the new" - that seem to imply old clothes will be made into new clothes.

H&M Group has the most established and widespread of the in-store recycling programs, with bins in many of its more than 4,200 stores worldwide.

The Swedish fashion giant details what it does with donations in colourful ad campaigns featuring messages like, "Shred it into fibres and stitch into something new," and "Let's tear your jeans into pieces and make new jeans out of them."

Customers are urged to donate "any clothes or home textiles that are no longer wanted or needed" so they can be "given a new purpose."

More often than not though, that new purpose doesn't mean being transformed into a new piece of clothing, but rather being resold - often in a country thousands of kilometres away from the point of sale.

That's because actually recycling clothes into other textiles, particularly new clothes, is costly and difficult.

Author and environmentalist Elizabeth Cline says less than one per cent of clothing is recycled to make new clothing.

I:Collect, the company that handles the donations for H&M and several other major retailers, says about 35 per cent of what it collects is recycled and used for products like carpet padding, painters' cloths or insulation.

Cline says it's not a matter of simply turning "your old clothes into new garments," as another of H&M's ads suggests.

That's because many of our clothes are made of blended fibres, so they don't break down easily.

When you recycle cotton and wool, for example, it diminishes the quality of the material, she says.

"It weakens the cotton and wool strand and gives you a lesser product."

H&M's own sustainability reports acknowledge the challenge. Of all of the material used to make its estimated half a billion garments a year, only 0.7 per cent is recycled material.

Cline is also skeptical about H&M's motivations for its take-back program.

"The reason why H&M is focusing on textile recycling is because it's an easy sustainability win for them. It doesn't involve them changing their production model at all."

She's critical of so-called fast-fashion retailers, chains she says produce large volumes of cheap, disposable clothing.

About 85 per cent of unwanted textiles in North America end up in landfills - which amounts to more than 11 billion kilograms a year.

Business model to blame?

Claudia Marsales, Markham, Ont.'s senior manager of waste and environmental management, says the city north of Toronto banned textiles from its landfills because there was so much of it. Markham is one of only two Canadian municipalities to do so, along with Colchester, N.S.

Like Cline, Marsales takes issue with fast fashion's business model.

Her city defines the term as "inexpensive, trendy clothing designed and priced to be bought, worn, then quickly discarded."

She wonders if H&M's recycling program is actually more about driving "foot traffic into the store" - especially since the retailer offers a discount to buy more.

She says it would take H&M more than a decade to recycle what it sells in a matter of days.

H&M says "vouchers are a way to show old textiles have a great value," and can help "change the mindset."

Technology gap

The retailer's website has extensive information on its sustainability program but no specifics on what happens to clothes from its donation bins.

The company says it has collected more than 57,000 tonnes of used textiles since launching the program worldwide in 2013.

Cecilia Brannsten, H&M's environmental sustainability manager, says the company doesn't "want to encourage a throwaway attitude," and that its clothes are high quality and made to last.

She says fashion recycling is challenging, particularly since the technology isn't yet sufficiently advanced to be applied on an industrial scale. But she's convinced it's where the industry needs to be focused to become more sustainable.

Jennifer Gilbert, chief marketing officer for I:Collect, the firm that handles donated clothes for H&M, Levi's, Adidas and Reebok, said in an email the company has collected more than 600,000 kilograms of old garments from its Canadian partners since 2013.

Most of the donations it collects end up in second-hand clothing markets, often in Africa and Central and South America.

Burning clothes in Kenya

Kenya is one of Canada's best customers for second-hand clothes. In 2016, Canada exported more than $160 million worth of used textiles globally, with $22 million of it going to Kenya.

Much of it, however, isn't good enough to be sold, and in many cases, ends up in the trash.

"Sometimes they pack very old items," says Maina Andrew, a used-clothing importer who was sorting through a shipment from Canada at the Gikomba market as he spoke with a field producer for CBC.

Like most of the importers, Andrew buys in bulk and often doesn't know exactly what's in the bale until he opens it.

He says many of the clothes are low quality and tough to sell.

"If people don't buy them, we just dump them."

Not far from the market, there are piles and bonfires of discarded clothes made by popular brands, some with recycling initiatives.

I:Collect told Marketplace it's investing in a waste collection and recycling business in Kenya and "would like to see collection systems in every country that imports second-hand clothes."

What to do with old clothes?

So, if clothes recycling isn't quite all it's cracked up to be - at least not yet - what are the best ways to empty our closets without adding to the piles in landfills?

Marsales says your best bet is to find a way to give your clothes a longer life.

Repair them when necessary rather than buying new ones.

Consider a clothing swap where you trade your old clothes with someone else. She also suggests giving them to friends and family who will wear them again.

If you do decide to donate, Marsales says it's important to do your research to find the right charity. And call the charity in advance to make sure you are only donating what the group needs.

But her most important advice is simply: "Don't buy so much."

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What really happens to old clothes dropped in those in-store recycling bins

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There's a new clothing donation bin in town, competing with charities for your unwanted clothes. Some of the biggest brands in fashion have launched take-back programs with messages about reusing and recycling your unwanted textiles. But what are the odds your old clothes will actually be transformed into new threads?

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Marketplace investigates clothing recycling programs at fast fashion chains, and reveals the marketing may not live up to what it promises consumers and the planet. While you feel good about dropping off all those used clothes, you might not be doing as much good as you think. Watch Charlsie Agro's journey as she follows the trail of your old T-shirts around the world

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Clothing Waste: Fashion's dirty secret - Episodes - Marketplace

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Marketplace investigates clothing recycling programs at fast fashion chains, and reveals the marketing may not live up to what it promises consumers and the planet. While you feel good about dropping off all those used clothes, you might not be doing as much good as you think.

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LOOKING good can be bad for the planet. Massive amounts of energy, water and other resources are needed to make clothes. From the pesticides poured on cotton fields to the washes in which denim is dunked, making 1kg of fabric generates 23kg of greenhouse gases on average, reckons McKinsey, a consultancy. Because consumers keep almost every type of apparel only half as long as they did 15 years ago, these inputs go to waste faster than ever before. More than half of the fastest-fashion items made are chucked away within a year of production. But such rampant retail therapy costs the earth.

Global clothing production doubled between 2000 and 2014 as garment firms' operations became more efficient, their production cycles sped up and shoppers got better bargains. Global clothing sales came to $1.8trn in 2015, according to Greenpeace, up from $1trn in 2002. Fast-fashion brands such as Zara, owned by Spain's Inditex, now offer more than 20 lines a year; Sweden's H&M manages up to 16. Making do and mending is out of fashion.

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It is not just the volume of clothes that have changed; processes have too. Cheap materials, such as polyester, are cheaper than natural ones. So almost all apparel today is made of a mix of materials-very often including polyester. Recycling requires separating it out, and that is is difficult. For one thing mechanical methods of recycling degrade fibres. And chemical methods are too expensive to be commercially viable; few clothing companies bother to research them. Shipping second-hand clothes off to countries in Africa and Asia is also a bust. Even if local markets are large enough to absorb them, the poorer quality of polyester-mixed garbs means they do not last.

Most big fashion firms do not bother to measure environmental impacts. But a few, stung by the industry's previous scandals, are taking pre-emptive action. H&M has eliminated toxic per- and polyfluorinated chemicals from its lines (which are used to make garments waterproof). It is also the company which buys the most "better cotton"-cotton grown under a scheme to eliminate the nastiest pesticides and encourage strict water management. Nike, an American sportswear giant, knits certain shoe lines, rather than piecing them together. This reduces waste by 60%. Patagonia, which makes hiking and outdoor gear, may have the most helpful idea, at least for its customers, if not for profits. It encourages shoppers to buy only what they need, and helps to mend older items so they last longer. Encouraging people to do more with fewer items of clothing would help the planet most quickly. Good business practice will never go out of style.

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The environmental costs of creating clothes

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LOOKING good can be bad for the planet. Massive amounts of energy, water and other resources are needed to make clothes. From the pesticides poured on cotton fields to the washes in which denim is dunked, making 1kg of fabric generates 23kg of greenhouse gases on average, reckons McKinsey, a consultancy.