Fashion’s Most Disgusting Product
The following opinion piece by Dana Thomas appeared in The New York Times.
On Thursday New York Fashion Week kicks off the spring-summer 2027 season, with brands presenting their latest offerings on runways and in showrooms. As part of a monthlong fashionpalooza, designers will then travel to London, Milan and Paris for more of the same, all to feed the $1.9 trillion industry that produces an estimated 100 billion garments and accessories a year. Rough estimates are that only about 80 billion of them actually sell.
What happens to the other 20 billion? Some wind up in outlets and on flash sale sites. Some get dumped in far-off places, like the once majestic Atacama Desert in Chile, where in 2021 Agence France-Presse reported that 39,000 tons of unsold fast fashion apparel were dumped, creating dunes of clothes. Much of that unworn apparel, often with price tags still attached, is burned, the synthetic fabrics and dyes generating a toxic black smoke that drifts into local villages. A court case in Hong Kong revealed that Chanel had until a few years ago engaged in what the industry euphemistically calls “inventory management.” Burberry says it no longer destroys leftover products, but the company revealed in its 2018 annual report that it had incinerated or otherwise destroyed 28.6 million pounds’ worth of unsold clothes, accessories and perfume the previous fiscal year ($37 million), bringing its five-year total to about £100 million ($130 million).
Read the rest of the story at The New York Times here.
