{ "title": "Our opinion on the new French "anti-fast fashion" bill." , "date": 1711554888 , "content": [ [ "p", "" ] , [ "p", "EDIT - The original version of this article was written in March 2024. The law proposal has since been revised and we are very happy to observe that the final version of the law has been amended in ways that align with most of our opinions and recommendations listed below, that we have no doubt were shared by many other voices in the industry." ] , [ "p", "(Click here for the French translation of this article)" ] , [ "p", "Almost exactly two weeks ago, a bill was unanimously passed by French MPs to combat ultra-fast fashion. The intention is very commendable: to fight against pollution, forced labour, and offshoring, all well-known scourges of the fashion industry that harm the planet and destroy our jobs." ] , [ "p", "Against these abuses, the law holds brands accountable: a system of financial penalties and a ban on advertising will target companies guilty of offering quantities of designs exceeding a given threshold. Retailers will also be held responsible for the products they sell on the market." ] , [ "p", "Pending the bill's passage at the Senate, and questioned about it by the French Federation of Circular Fashion — of which we are members — we are publishing our response here in the form of an open letter." ] , [ "hr" ] , [ "pc", "A laudable intention unfortunately tarnished by serious flaws" ] , [ "p", "The text contains numerous ambiguities. From one paragraph to another, it confuses the breadth and depth of the catalogue, range and renewal rate, references and styles. It raises genuine questions about the counting of customisable products. Under the pretext of including indirect sales platforms, it risks a dangerous "snowball effect" where penalties would accumulate. None of this, however, is difficult to correct." ] , [ "p", "Our major criticism — because we have one — is of a different nature." ] , [ "p", "By focusing solely on the measure of catalogue breadth, without any consideration of the eco-responsibility of the products or whether they are actually manufactured or not, and by setting a threshold value independent of the company's size and the market it addresses, the text targets the wrong entities for ideological reasons, risking endangering the most innovative and virtuous industry players, including some French flagships, while sparing many actors with highly questionable practices and exposing itself to criticism from ultra-fast fashion lobbyists." ] , [ "p", "It is therefore urgent to revise this bill not to limit its effects but to retarget them and honor the original intention: punishing companies that market socially and ecologically irresponsible quantities of products." ] , [ "hr" ] , [ "pc", "A questionable ideological standpoint" ] , [ "p", "To fully understand the text, one must refer to the introduction of the bill, which provides its context: "this evolution of the sector [...] towards ephemeral fashion [...] influences purchasing habits by creating buying impulses and a constant need for renewal, which has environmental, social, and economic consequences."" ] , [ "p", "This law proposition is driven by a post-structuralist interpretation of society, straight out of Jean Baudrillard. Consumers are considered passively receptive to a market offer that dictates their desires, preferences, and behaviours. This alienation leads to an erosion of the meaning and value of the act of purchasing. The correlation between the two is reinforced by the low prices practiced on fast fashion platforms." ] , [ "p", "In other words:" ] , [ "pb", "The consumer is reduced to a victim of a society that urges them to consume to exist, and for whom the act of purchasing and its staging on social networks become more significant than the product itself, barely worn and quickly discarded and replaced." ] , [ "p", "The lawmaker's response to this phenomenon is to put an end to the glut of supply, wean the consumer, bring them to their senses, and remove the desire to consume. For this, nothing better than penalising responsible companies by prohibiting their advertising and forcing them to finance recycling projects through a contribution of several euros per product." ] , [ "p", "This intellectual journey presents three fundamental flaws." ] , [ "p", "Firstly, it absolves public action of responsibility. Questioned on the very day of the vote, the bill's rapporteur completely absolved themselves of the consequences of the law on selling prices and the impact the law would have on low incomes. The parliamentarian merely mentioned that "nothing forces industrialists to pass the financial burden onto customers". This is clearly a challenge given the margins of the sector. The consumer will pay." ] , [ "p", "Secondly, it hides the impact of the law on the market by vilifying a few consumers with deviant behaviours — notably young social media influencers — presented as the target to be eliminated. This completely ignores the fact that the average Shein consumer is not a teenage fashionista filming herself on TikTok: she is 38 years old (IFM survey) and if she buys there, it is not only because it's cheap but because it is the only place where she finds trendy products in her size." ] , [ "p", "Finally, and more seriously, the law targets the wrong industrial entities by penalising the number of references presented to the public, completely ignoring whether they are actually manufactured or not, in which quantities, and blind to production conditions." ] , [ "ul", [ "" , "A brand that markets a limited number of products with questionable properties will be spared by the law. We will not name them, but brands abound on the market selling products mainly made of synthetic and blended fibres, manufactured in South Asia, and sold at high prices under a well-crafted "accessible luxury" marketing concept." , "An ultra-fast fashion actor and its lobbyists will have a valid point and argue that this text is unfair because their collections, produced in small quantities and sold until stock is exhausted, ensure unsold levels close to zero. Which would be virtuous if the quality of the products was reasonable. Besides, they can arguably not be held responsible for what customers do with the products after purchase." , "A brand or a designer aggregator that manages to bring together artisanal know-how, locally produced and respectfully made with noble materials, would be penalised. Some activists propose setting the threshold at 5,000 new products per year. If you find this amount significant, know that across men's, women's, teens', children's collections, and home linen, a brand like Dior exceeds this number of references per year and would be prohibited from advertising in France." ] ] , [ "p", "Some may see no problem with this, but from our perspective, we reach the limit of post-structuralism here. Non-utilitarian fashion consumption is not necessarily driven by ego, ostentatious and futile (in the sense of Veblen). As we have already stated on this blog, luxury consumption goes far beyond this. The breadth of the market offer is the catalyst for creative wealth. It allows individuals to flourish without forcing them to conform to a standardised offer that naturally tends to be exclusive of different tastes, of different cultural influences, of different body shapes." ] , [ "hr" ] , [ "pc", "Our proposal" ] , [ "p", "The conditions of application of this law must be corrected. For this, it is necessary to accelerate the implementation of a genuine eco-responsibility score for fashion products, subjecting them to Article L541-9-12 of the environmental law, and limit the effects of the new anti-fast-fashion law to companies whose catalogue, regardless of its size, presents too high a proportion of products with a low score, while leaving out of the scope of the law those actors whose products are mostly designed and produced responsibly." ] , [ "p", "This would protect our jobs, our know-how, and the emergence of actors free to flood the global market with durable products, made under humane conditions and sold at a rewarding price for all, manufacturers and consumers alike. In short, what we, French luxury actors, have been doing for years." ] ] , "author": "Alex VB" }