Vestiaire extends list of banned fast fashion brands to "fight fashion waste"

High street favourites - H&M, Zara, Uniqlo, Abercrombie & Fitch, Gap and Urban Outfitters – have all been wiped from Vestiaire Collective’s site after the company extended its fast fashion resale ban.

The aforementioned brands are among 30 that are now banned from Vestiaire Collective’s platform as part of its crackdown on fast fashion resale. The list goes on to include Mango, American Apparel, Benetton, Bershka, Calzedonia, Desigual, Intimissimi, Hollister, Disney, Jennyfer, Monki, Old Navy, Only, OVS, Oysho, Piazza Italia, Pull & Bear, Reserved, Stradivarius, Tally Weijl, Weekday, Tom Tailor, US Polo Assn and Vero Moda.

Last November, Vestiaire Collective announced that it was going to ban the resale of fast fashion on its global platform. The first step removed products from retailers including Boohoo, Pretty Little Thing, Asos and Shein from the site. It timed the move to coincide with the Black Friday bonanza sales period and it is part of its "Better Friday" movement.

The French-based global business said it was inspired to make the move following a trip in October of this year to Kantamanto in Ghana where 15 million items of unwanted fashion arrive every week. Much of it ends up in landfill causing environmental devastation.

Continuing its mission, just before the annual Black Friday sales, Vestiaire has embarked on the second phase of a three-year plan. The company has published a new set of criteria for determining whether brands contribute to “fuelling overproduction and overconsumption”.

The new criteria are as follows:

• A low price point, including whether it is more cost-effective to replace a garment than repair it
• An intense renewal rate
• Speed to market, or the amount of time between a product’s design phase and entering the store
• The frequency of sale promotions by the brand

Dounia Wone, Chief Impact Officer at Vestire, commented: “Fast fashion brands contribute to excessive production and consumption, resulting in devastating social and environmental consequences in the Global South. It is our duty to act and lead the way for other industry players to join us in this movement, and together we can have an impact,”

H&M told Vogue Business that it respects Vestiaire’s decision, but shares “the same viewpoint as Vestiaire when it comes to driving collective change towards a circular fashion economy”.

“At H&M we want to make more sustainable fashion accessible for the many. We believe we need to explore new ways of consuming and producing fashion and this is why we are testing and investing in a range of rental and reuse services.”

A representative for Bestseller, the owner of Only and Vero Moda, added that it was “quite peculiar” and a “promotional gimmick” for a luxury resale platform to ban brands that are not considered luxury.

“For us, achieving circularity in the fashion industry has nothing to do with the price tag and whether brands place themselves in the affordable or luxury category. The foundation for circularity necessitates collaborative efforts that transcend individual businesses.”