Key Takeaways:
- The fashion industry is at an inflection point, with sustainability gaining cultural and commercial momentum, while the fast-fashion business model continues its rapid growth. This dynamic creates a conflict between values and consumer demand for “value” in a challenging economic climate.
- Sustainability is proving to be a viable business model, with resale platforms like ThredUp seeing a massive surge in stock price and narrowing losses, demonstrating that circularity can offer a viable revenue stream to complement core offerings. Simultaneously, educational initiatives from YKK and in Belgian schools are shaping a more conscious consumer. At the same time, ultra-fast fashion’s growth is still immense. Shein’s UK arm reported over £2 billion in sales in 2024, a significant increase from the year before.
- The rise of “greenwashing” is a concern, as fast fashion brands co-opt sustainability credentials without changing their core, high-volume business model. Princess Polly’s B Corp certification and Shein’s pilot with Lufthansa for sustainable aviation fuel, have both drawn criticism for providing superficial sustainability without addressing overproduction.
Sustainability has had a strong run in fashion’s headlines this year. We’ve seen legislative wins, with French lawmakers approving a bill to target ultra-fast fashion brands, while the rise of Vinted could be viewed as another victory, increasing access to second-hand fashion (especially in Europe) whilst also helping to normalise the idea of re-sale from something thrifty into something more mainstream. At the same time, fast fashion has generated its own set of headlines, many of them pointing in the opposite direction: new product growth at all costs.
This month has shown the same two story tracks happening in microcosm.
First, the positive news from a pure sustainability perspective, taking in progress on circularity and cultural attitudes towards more conscious consumption. The last couple of weeks have brought some genuinely encouraging signals from the sustainable side of the industry. Take ThredUp, the resale platform has seen its stock price climb more than sevenfold since January on the back of a business that is showing signs of long-term durability. Losses are narrowing, revenues are improving, and its Resale-as-a-Service model is being picked up by more brands. Given that resale has often carried the reputation of being noble but having marginal impact on the bottom line, these numbers provide some evidence of more commercial and strategic relevance.
The cultural signals are encouraging too. In Belgium, schoolchildren are now learning about the impact of fashion on the environment through free bilingual lessons. The tone is practical: where do clothes come from, what happens when they’re thrown away, what choices do we have in between, and other similar questions. These are things most of us only start to interrogate in adulthood, if at all, so talking about them earlier suggests the next generation may see fashion differently from the start, depending on a complex range of other economic and social variables.
Meanwhile in Japan, YKK is pushing design education into the conversation in a similar way. Their latest initiative reminds students that sustainability runs through the smallest trims and components of a garment. Zippers, buttons, fastenings, all the pieces that rarely get considered in sustainability plans. And while this might seem like playing about on the edges of a vast problem, there are scale effects at work when we consider just how many trims, fastenings, furniture, and other components that are trivial on their own make it into garments on an annual basis: billions.
But at the same time that this cultural and commercial uptick in sustainability awareness and viability is happening, fast fashion is also having a bumper year. As we looked at last week, Shein’s UK arm posted sales of more than two billion pounds in 2024, up by over thirty percent on the year before. Profits also climbed by more than fifty percent. Whatever pressure the wider apparel industry is under to change, from regulators, consumers, and investors, Shein is still proving that price, variety, and velocity are enough to capture mass demand – especially at a time when an increasing number of shoppers are finding themselves pulled more towards “value” than “values” due to extrinsic economic factors.
And even the widely-acknowledged bellwethers of sustainability accreditation have started to succumb to the fast fashion model. Last month ultra-fast fashion brand Princess Polly received B Corp certification. If you’re struggling to reconcile that concept, you’re not alone. And if that odd pairing feels jarring, then news this week that Shein has partnered with Lufthansa to use sustainable aviation fuel on some of its shipments will no doubt land the exact same way. Both of these developments carry the right language, and they both look, on the surface, like steps in the right direction, but under any close scrutiny questions begin to surface all too easily. Does it change anything if the volumes keep climbing? Does a greener delivery method really matter when the clothes are still designed to be disposable? And what does a B Corp badge actually stand for if it can belong to Princess Polly just as easily as Patagonia?
Let’s start with Shein. The company has signed a six-month pilot with Lufthansa Cargo to use sustainable aviation fuel on some of its shipments. On paper, it’s hard to argue with the idea of cleaner fuel being a net positive, but the model itself hasn’t changed, the volumes are the same, and the churn of disposable clothing with no real pathway to an end of life besides being thrown away, is the same. It’s still ultra-fast fashion on a massive scale.
Princess Polly’s B Corp badge raises the same questions. The brand, which was able to scale using TikTok micro-trends and relentless drops, has now been certified as a “business for good”. Yes, the company has made changes: 37 per cent of its inventory is made from lower-impact fabrics, its factories are audited, and its emissions targets have been signed off by the Science-Based Targets initiative. The assessment gave it a score of 86.8, just over the 80-point threshold. That ticks the boxes, but just as with Shein, the business model hasn’t changed, it’s still volume, speed, and constant newness – albeit all of those things with greater consideration and awareness of their impact. Critics of the move are already saying the certification loses credibility when it stretches to include brands like this. Dr. Bronner’s, famous as a ground zero advocate for the very ideas that would later be embraced by the B Corp certification, actually walked away from B Corp entirely earlier this year, arguing the bar has slipped too low.
Both stories tell you something about where fashion is in 2025. Sustainability is making tangible progress, but at the same time, fast fashion is booming and borrowing the trappings of sustainability without having to really alter its DNA.
It’s certainly possible to read Shein’s SAF deal and Princess Polly’s B Corp as progress, and maybe they are, in a narrow sense. Cleaner fuel is better than dirty fuel. Some recycled polyester is better than none. But the machines behind them are still running as fast as they can, predicated on the idea that the market can sustain theoretically infinite volume with no real outlet valve.
Perhaps that’s the real story. In 2025 fashion is still standing at the same fork in the road, and right now it feels like anyone’s guess which direction wins out, because the industry is continuing to test both roads over and over again, without really committing (at a whole-sector level) to either.