Sustainability in Fashion Retail

How do you look at sustainability in fashion today?

Sustainability, from the point of view of sustainable products, is something that’s become very, very strong in the last 12 months. It’s something that’s been growing for a long time, but it’s only become a real issue relatively recently. There is now a real rush, from all retailers, to have a sustainable range of products, as fast as they can. It’s something that is still maturing, but it’s maturing fast. I know for a fact, because I was involved in it, that up until eight, nine months ago you could find suppliers that, literally, had no idea where to start, with sustainability. Now, it’s rare to find a supplier that doesn’t know what it is, or has not already taken measures to be able to produce sustainable products.

This has provoked a very big change in the industry, over the last few months. It’s something that we will see more and more and there is a real demand for it, from a customer point of view, obviously in some countries, more than in others. This tends to be more of a northern European phenomenon, rather than a southern European one. But it is extending very fast and, as we know, Zara has pledged to it, a couple of months back, so this is going to spread very, very fast.

What measures have been put in place to bring the suppliers up to speed with sustainability?

There’s a big push from the retailers themselves, to educate the suppliers, because really, it’s not major changes that a supplier needs to make, in terms of their own production set up, to be able to produce a sustainable product. It has to do, to a greater extent, with where they source their fabrics or their components from. It doesn’t involve a lot of investment for the supplier; it just involves more education. There is a push from the retailer to educate suppliers as to what it’s about and what they need. That’s probably the major push and, obviously, there is a demand for that and that creates incentive for the suppliers to come up with products.