Is this the end of sustainability in fashion? by Orsola de Castro

This Thursday’s newsletter features a piece by Orsola de Castro, designer, author, and «lifelong mender.» Co-founder of the non-profit Fashion Revolution and author of "Loved Clothes Last", she has been promoting transparent and fair fashion for over twenty years. From launching the brand From Somewhere to curating the London Fashion Week, her work has always intertwined creativity and activism. Starting from the sad turn that the relationship between sustainability and fashion has taken in 2025 - deeply wounded by a financial crisis that has shifted the industry's priorities - de Castro tells us the story of greenwashing and post-2000 investments made solely for media purposes, concluding with the authentic practices that have survived these years of false advertising. The second-hand market, as we told you in this article, represents a lifeline for the shipwrecked brands of 2025. But will the resale trade manage to earn the same reputation?

For almost 20 years, the fashion world has pretended to care about change, dressing itself up in ethics and environmentalism, dusting its paws with flour to turn from wolf to lamb, while continuing to sell a landfill’s worth of useless products beneath these promises. Now that no one - neither consumers nor insiders - understands anything anymore, we are finally able to see the truth: the carnival costume stripped bare in all its (vain) glory.

It was a beautiful mask, clearly. With beads (not plastic), the glitter (sustainable) sewn by God (or better yet, by fairly paid workers), recycled-circular-recyclable and, to top it off, available in all sizes, not just up to size 44. Everyone wore it: CEOs, CFOs, creative directors, top managers; they lent it to each other when needed, to make a good impression at international sustainability conferences, when they won awards for meaningless and impactless initiatives, or when, interviewed in the pages of various editions of Vogue, they self-declared themselves saints. But now, it no longer matters. All the children in power are playing a different game, not pretending to be good anymore, but rather: «let’s see who can be the meanest.» The fashion industry, ruled by a handful of spoiled, attention-seeking children, has switched up its game.

That fashion would turn its back on sustainability was, sadly, predictable

My first doubts arose a few years after my journey began, when I realized that the concept of sustainability was becoming a trend. By the late 2000s and almost suddenly, what had until then been handled only by a small, invisible group of brave and original pioneers was spotted by the big industry. Standing out to spark change from within was, of course, our goal, but soon the opposite happened: instead of influencing, we were influenced, and the concept of sustainability, circularity, and social justice became a product, not a new systemic paradigm. As if hundreds of thousands of vegan bags (that is, made of plastic) or organic cotton T-shirts, a «sustainable,» «inclusive» initiative, or any high-profile collaboration - always created to sell - could have magically triggered true change.

«A landfill full of organic cotton T-shirts is still an overflowing landfill.» – Marc Bain

By becoming a trend, the very concept of sustainability lost its purpose, turning from initiative into cliché. Moreover, we all know that trends fade, boomerang, disappear, and return cyclically like skinny jeans and flared ones. On Google, until 2022, searches for «sustainable fashion» were growing, while now they are in constant decline - sporadic peaks aside, such as during Earth Day.

The Years of pretending

The practice of greenwashing was the real disaster. Declarations and promises, non-existent initiatives, words used without context, and constant sensationalism created a stew of confusion that bored consumers because the truth was never told to them. For most, sustainability was nothing more than a period when H&M hung greenish slogans in stores and used recycled paper tags on clothes. For twenty years, «sustainable» was a word seen and reused endlessly, but never absorbed, never truly lived - a marketing exercise, a useless effort. And yet, billions were invested in technology, innovation, and start-ups. Large groups and mega fast-fashion brands did it mainly for media exposure, though some did invest meaningfully. After all, these were still two decades of great lessons, during which we witnessed the dawn of infinite possibilities, dreaming that a leading industry could spearhead a definitive shift in supply chains. It didn’t happen.

Happily, because there’s a silver lining in this story. The unlikely winners are as old as the world itself: the second-hand market, the only surviving rival of fast and ultra-fast fashion - and the practice of reuse and repair; primordial instincts we’ve always carried within us as part of our innate but temporarily forgotten efficiency. Indeed, major investments have also gone into repair services, followed by legislation (in France and soon in Europe) that facilitates and encourages their use. The market for these services in particular is transforming significantly, growing by 2.5% annually, and, according to Business Research Insights, will increase from $3.6 billion in 2024 to $4.5 billion in 2033.

If the second-hand and vintage market has taken over - and major brands have noticed - the next to rise will be the market of repairs, customizations, and alterations, an in-house couture where the garments in our wardrobes are kept, mended, and lovingly transformed. The vehicles of our lives will finally bear the scars that prove it. This, in my opinion, will be the new uniform: lived-in clothes, worn and reworn, frayed yet repaired, garments with souls, altered, transformed, witnesses. Through them, we will visualize our intentions, just as we now print them on T-shirt slogans.

I Care I Repair

Soon, we will stop trying to look new every time, because trends are only a pendulum, and today we’ve reached its peak. Inevitably, future generations will look back and judge our wrongdoings, just as we look and judge those of our ancestors, and the damage we’ve done to their lives, like the mistakes of the past that now destabilize our present. Meanwhile, when I teach in universities, when I meet young emerging designers from around the world, I understand that the drive to give more and take less is present and active in their mindset; it’s not up to them to change the world, but they can influence their culture and those around them. The same goes for Gen Z and Gen Alpha after them, aware of a declining world, balancing between the rules of capitalism, which demand constant consumption, and those of nature, which implore us to scale back. We must start small and personal. Believe in it. When you think you have to overcome the feasible, you lose perspective. My wardrobe has been my constant inspiration, I always start again from there: from a holey sweater or a fallen hem, from a rediscovered dress and a forgotten one.