When being materialistic is good (particularly for the environment)
A high school friend of mind loves fashion, and recently brought to attention an article about how ‘true materialism’ is good for the environment. Sounds like clickbait, but read on.
The concept is simple: ‘fast fashion’, a concept championed by Inditex (of the likes of Zara & Pull&Bear), Primark and Forever21, has brought about a complete shift in the thinking about fashion. From a business and design perspective it’s fascinating. Instead of the traditional ‘scheduled’ releases of new clothing (read a new collection per Season), fast fashion pioneers adopted an approach that is very analogous to agile in software engineering: Design, Test, Ship, Iterate, Repeat. It is said that Zara can design a new item one day and have it on most stores within 2 weeks. Usually they will start with a smaller production run that gets tested in a few select stores. Based on the sales in those stores, they then ramp up the production volume and can potentially take it to the whole region, or world. But if it initially flops, no worries either, it can just move on to the next thing.
However, these items are meant to be purchased, and worn, fast. These are mostly the kind of thing you wash twice and that’s that. Time to get a new one.
Instead, the likes of GreenPeace are arguing that we should repair our items, cherish them, reuse them. This is where the concept behind ‘true materialism’ comes in, in that we should truly care and derive happiness from our possessions.
Of course, many of us already do something similar when it comes to premium goods. Louis Vuitton bags, Burberry jackets, Rolex watches are often seen as ‘timeless’ (except for the watch I suppose). We usually keep them for several seasons in a row. That is, those of us who can afford them.
This whole conundrum made me think of this quote from Terry Pratchett DiscWorld character Captain Vimes (If you’ve never heard of either I suggest you stop right now and go and grab yourself one of Pratchett’s books; just be prepared to laugh out loud)
“The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.
Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork [the city where he lives] on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.
But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.
This was the Captain Samuel Vimes ‘Boots’ theory of socioeconomic unfairness.”
So could we design a service that feels cool and inclusive, while being aligned to the company business needs?
Can a fashion company ‘recycle’ clothes and still feel premium to customers?Can they do this while increasing revenues? Would it be possible to take advantage of some of that Fast Fashion behaviour?
And can we make better quality clothing (which according to Vimes Boots Theory will last for years) more accessible to sections of the population with lower disposable income?
Well, it’s at least worth a shot. Let’s throw some ideas around.
So take a brand at random, say Burberry.
If Burberry wants to keep selling raincoats but reduce environmental impact, it could start offering an exchange program. Bring your old raincoat and get a discount on your new one kind of thing.
Burberry can then repair the old raincoat and resell. Assuming they use good quality materials, they can either:
- refurbish the jacket, such that it can get a new life
- disassemble the materials and reassemble (using their fine design and craftsmanship) into a new appealing fashion item
In either case, Burberry should probably rebrand the products. Recycling is all fair and good, but we don’t want to tarnish the original brand do we?. For sake of simplicity, let’s call this new fashion line ‘Re-Burberry’ (let’s face it, naming is not my strength).
Finally, Burberry should sell the items online, in a dedicated platform, helping to keep costs down. Maybe customers can find a few samples in a Burberry store, to try them on and get a feel, but can only buy items online?
Even brands like Nike could do something similar. However, reselling old nikes is probably not that appealing (a guess, but while I would be happy buying a refurbished Burberry coat for myself or refurbished purse for my girlfriend, I do not feel that good about buying used Nikes). So instead, Nike could donate the shoes after refurbishing, spreading the image of the brand and also acting as a tax deductible donation. As it turns out, Nike does have a recycling programme which has been going since 1990 even though GreenPeace is not too fond of it. In my view, if it were to be possible to provide back a token of appreciation to the user who recycles the Nikes, whether monetary or not, there could be a stronger take up of the scheme.
For brands like Nike, them too could use with more regular purchases of their new premium models, while still giving new life to older pairs of shoes. So instead of running my nikes to the ground (like I usually do) I could be incentivised to exchange them every 6 months, or 3 months or something similar.
Maybe that should be part of the scheme for goods like Nike (as opposed to Burberry): you have to exchange a certain date after purchase, otherwise there is no discount (or it’s suddenly much lower). Or instead as a keen Nike customer you have to buy a subscription that entitles you to discounts and exchanges.
Both variants intend to make the fashion economy more circular, but without slowing down the purchase cycle. That is something Fast Fashion really shows, as per the quote below.
Because customers know that new items are arriving every few days, and in limited quantities that might disappear quickly if the item is a hit, they are motivated to shop frequently at Zara stores — an average of 17 visits per year, compared to only four or five at the Gap — slate.com
It is cool to keep checking the store for new items. It creates stronger customer interactions and brand identification. The ecological challenge is in all those nearly “single use” items that go to waste. The goal here would be for brands like Burberry and Nike to increase purchase cycles with exchange programs, while still controlling the resale prices and the brand. It could be fun for consumers, good for the environment and positive on the bottom line. What’s not to like?
Plenty to work out there, more questions than answers really, but there seems to be quite a few opportunities in this field.
What’s your thoughts?
