Comment by tjwebbnorfolk
10 days ago
One man's trash is another man's treasure.
They will be able to sell them for pennies on the dollar so that some fraction of them can be resold for cheap in Africa or somewhere else poor. Those companies can then dispose of them however they wish.
The reseller makes a small profit, and the original moanufacturer gets the PR of "clothing the poor" or whatever.
And, as usual, EU regulations achieve absolutely nothing -- if anything, this is worse than nothing.
1. Modern clothing is terrible, plastic filled, hardly resists multiple washings. This isn't the 1990s/2000s anymore where you could buy mid budged solid apparel and keep it forever. The gold existed, up to pre COVID. But since then and the rapid spread of fast fashion collecting cloth wastes is a bad business.
2. The market for vintage quality clothing is super strong and booming. You don't need to export it.
3. No fashion brand wants to be anywhere near associated to clothing the poor. It's a pr disaster.
1. You can buy a cotton tshirt from LIDL for 3 bucks and it'll hold for years. It won't be cut perfectly or have the softest material but it's definitely not bad.
Of course, if I get it from Temu for 6 cents it'll probably fall apart in a week, but modern clothing isn't really covered by "the cheapest thing I can find".
Same for ultralight fabrics, that, while lovely in summer, usually get trashed in a season or two simply because the thing weighs fuck all.
I'd even say we're in a golden age for clothing. I can get a motorcycle jacket that can slide at 80kmh for 40 bucks with shoulder and elbow protectors and a thermo layer insert.
Cheap cotton cannot hold for years, the fiber length and yarn quality makes it simply impossible. On top of that, cheap cotton is bleached and fast dyied which makes the clothing change after few washings.
I mean if you mean "hold" like, you can't still wear it albeit it looks nothing like it did two washings before, of course it does.
But then you look exactly like what you buy, someone with worn low quality clothing which looked nice in the shop and first wear.
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Same with my Jack and Jones T-shirts. 3 for 20€ and last for years.
> 2. The market for vintage quality clothing is super strong and booming. You don't need to export it.
The market for regular second-hand clothes is on the verge of collapsing in Germany though. Charities are flooded with low quality and unsalable stuff ever since it was made illegal to throw away clothes in the regular trash. You must bring them to recycling facilities instead now. It not profitable for charities to sort through them because of the volume. There is a market for quality vintage clothes but that's a totally different thing.
> 3. No fashion brand wants to be anywhere near associated to clothing the poor. It's a pr disaster.
That's probably the only thing that motivates brands not to overproduce. But lets be real, they will rather find loopholes for destroying them instead of selling them for cheap.
> Modern clothing is terrible, plastic filled, hardly resists multiple washings. This isn't the 1990s/2000s anymore where you could buy mid budged solid apparel and keep it forever. The gold existed, up to pre COVID. But since then and the rapid spread of fast fashion collecting cloth wastes is a bad business.
Hard disagree. Live in Central Asia, buy locally produced relatively cheap clothes and they have been lasting years so far.
You're not really describing fast fashion, aren't you?
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What about Uniqlo and Muji? They make exactly what you describe: mid-budget solid apparel. Their clothes last for years and resist multiple washings.
Both of those situations sound like a net win.
Isn't it a thing that poor countries can't get their own textile and clothing companies going because of donations or cheap used clothes? I'm fairly certain that's a thing.
There seems to be 3-4 other issues colluding with that. If customers prefer or can't afford new domestic clothes, then it would make it hard for a business to succeed.
a firm isn't going to sell them to reseller in the third world as it will cause brand dilution, additionally current customer base will feel shortchanged and shop elsewhere.
Much more likely is as the op said: selling to a company that will dispose of the stock.
How is achieving the exact goal worse than nothing?