Global – As the resale fashion market experiences a boost, one platform is saying a hard no to fast fashion brands. Paris-based Vestiaire Collective has issued a list of banned fast fashion brands that it believes jar with its certified B Corp status.
Brands on the banned list include Asos, Boohoo, Burton, Coast, Dorothy Perkins, Karen Millen, Miss Selfridge, Missguided, Nasty Gal, Oasis, Pretty Little Thing, Shein, Tezenis, Topman, Topshop (and collaborations) and Warehouse. These are all brands, according to the company, that meet fast fashion criteria of low product quality, poor working conditions for garment workers and significant carbon footprint.
The decision was prompted by a team visit to Kantamanto market in Ghana – the largest for second-hand clothing in West Africa – led by the Or Foundation – which demonstrated how most of the garments are of such poor quality that they are sent to landfill. The decision marks a growing push-back against the wastefulness of fast fashion and towards driving more circular models of fashion consumption, as we detail in Resale Redux.
Vestiaire Collective, France
Photography by Shvets
Belgium – Organic grower Eclo has teamed up with organic supermarket group Bio-Planet to rescue unsold loaves of bread and put them to good use as a base for growing mushrooms.
Based in Brussels, Eclo collects the bread from the supermarkets and mixes it with sawdust to create a growing medium. It then uses its 3,000-square-metre network in the Cureghem Cellars beneath the city to grow organic eryngii and nameko mushrooms, with the process taking 4–12 weeks. The mushrooms are then sold back at Bio-Planet’s supermarkets.
Eclo, which grows micro-herbs too, also uses brewing remnants from two breweries in Brussels. In 2021, 61% of the grower's mushroom substrates included 'waste' material. The concept may sound unappealing, but attitudes to what we consider to be traditionally palatable foods are changing, as detailed in Grotesque Grub and Food Austerity Innovators.
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