PRE-CYCLING:
Preventing some clothing from going straight to landfill through buying end of line and surplus stock.
You may have wondered what happens to all of the unsold clothes, shoes & accessories at the end of every season?
Often retailers (particularly the fast fashion brands) will over order on seasonal buys. They will expect to only sell about half of the stock at full price with the rest discounted for end of season sales etc. Many fashion brands over order because they get better deals from suppliers the more they buy upfront and they can deal with the excess at a later date. This is something that both the luxury and mass market brands are guilty of.
At the end of every season the fashion houses need to get rid of all unsold stock to make room for the new collections. Until fairly recently most of this unsold stuff would be burnt or sent to landfill. Horrendous. For the luxury labels they justified it by saying they want to protect a brand's image and price integrity.
But times have thankfully changed and more and more brands are thinking more carefully about the impact that the fashion industry is having on our planet. They are increasingly implementing alternative & more sustainable ways to move on their surplus. We are pleased to say that many of the fashion houses now send surplus stock to outlets, sample sales or to be recycled. And some have even entered into some amazing charity partnerships.
Here at The Green Muse we have been able to source some of this surplus stock (which is why a proportion of the items we are selling are new with tags). There is nothing wrong with the stock - it's just considered past season!
We are proud to celebrate Slow Fashion; we are not perfect but we are committed to doing our bit to lessen the fashion industry's environmental impact on our planet.
Happy Shopping!
Philippa x