Artikel vom 31. März 2022
When I was approached by the 202030 Summit with the question:
How might we strengthen local fashion communities, businesses, and innovators to strive for a regenerative future?
I stumbled over the term regenerative future because that means to regrow, renew, or restore resources, especially after they have been damaged or lost.
If clothes are burned or buried in landfills, there is no restoring, no renewing, and no regrowing.
So my position on regenerative fashion is this: whatever gets brought into and bought within Germany should never leave Germany again.
With my small start-up Rebound Stuff, I bought unwanted clothes from over 800 people in the last year.
About 12,000 kilos in total. I was aiming to build a ReCommerce business that was more flexible, more demand-driven, and more understanding than others.
I wanted to educate people about the resale value of things. But instead, I learned a hard lesson.
With the experience from the past year, I came to a conclusion:
I believe 100% that we are in need of professional companies and innovations to collect, sort, repair, rework, and upcycle clothes within Germany in order to keep them at their highest value.
Simply reselling them somewhere is not good enough, even if we produce better.
But at this moment, the costs of doing any of these things—sorting, repairing, reworking, and upcycling—within Germany are simply too high to make it work for the masses. This makes most clothes a total economic loss.
Therefore, I believe that we will also need specialized technologies and higher investments to build new companies that can step up in this field because I don’t see the majority of people starting to mend and repair their own garments at home or going to a tailor.
On the other hand, selling secondhand clothing online is very expensive when it comes to displaying, describing, and shipping single pieces. The return rates add even more to the costs.
I believe the future of secondhand and upcycled fashion lies in well-sorted local secondhand stores, which are more than just shops but can also act as social places. With brands, vertical fashion chains, and fashion retailers taking a strong digital route these days, I call on owner-led local secondhand shops to reclaim abandoned inner cities and create a pre-owned fashion culture.
To strengthen local fashion communities and innovators in the field of ReCommerce, we have to leverage these two opportunities and not see them as contradicting each other: we need to build businesses that innovate need-based textile sorting and refurbishment and cooperate with local fashion communities to even create a chance for a regenerative future for us all.
In order for this to work, I see one major challenge. Not only do we need investments and a network of small stores, but the majority of people in Germany need to finally understand that buying secondhand is not about thrift or bargains. The marketing headline cannot be “Get 70% off the original price.“ Saving a buck or two should not be the reason to choose secondhand.
Restoring clothes is no longer just an option for shopping; it is an absolute necessity for all of us in order to survive.
Because in the end, pure textile recycling can never be the solution for an industry that still aims for growth.