Clothing brands try pulling in Gen Z with needle and thread
Encouraging customers to mend worn clothes instead of buying new ones might seem like a self-defeating sales strategy. But in-store repairs and sewing workshops are becoming essential retail services for clothing brands as they try to appeal to young consumers who want to save money and the planet.
While luxury fashion houses and select specialty retailers like Patagonia have offered product repairs for decades, the concept has caught on. Jeans giant Levi Strauss & Co., casual wear chain Uniqlo, and budget retailer Primark are some of the apparel companies hoping to win over Generation Z shoppers with a needle and thread.
“Fix it, don’t ditch it”
Levi’s created a handstitching course for high school students after determining that many Gen Zers lacked the sewing skills to match their interest in thrift store shopping and sustainability. Employees spend 90 minutes instructing teenagers on four tasks: sewing on a button, hemming, patching a hole, and fixing a tear.
The Wear Longer program, which the San Francisco-based company is expanding across the US, builds on the repair and customization services Levi’s offers at hundreds of stores worldwide.
“We think it’s important to empower the people who buy our clothes with the skill sets to maintain them, to get them to that second life,” Paul Dillinger, Levi’s head of global design innovation, says.
Mending is a tiny part of cutting the world’s mountains of textile waste
The evolution of mending from an economic necessity and traditional craft to a method for cultivating customers didn’t happen overnight. The fashion industry as a whole has come under intensifying pressure to reduce its contributions to environmental pollution and climate change.
Textile waste—which includes manufacturing remnants, unwanted clothes and linens, and unsold products—is one of the industry’s most pressing challenges. Each year, the world generates fabric waste at a rate equivalent to a garbage truck’s worth getting dumped or incinerated every second, the United Nations Environment Program estimates.
Researchers broadly agree that repairing and reselling clothes can reduce a garment’s environmental impact, especially if it delays or replaces a new purchase. But many caution the practices remain too limited to offset continued growth in clothing production and consumption.
Clothing production roughly doubled between 2000 and 2015, while the average number of wearings per garment declined by about 36 percent, according to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. The sustainability non-profit estimated that less than one percent of discarded clothing material got recycled into new apparel.
Enter Generation Z, born between 1997 and 2012. It’s the generation that grew up with fast fashion and e-commerce, then had school years and young adulthoods shaped by the coronavirus pandemic and post-pandemic inflation.
Whether due to limited budgets or a rejection of materialism, Gen Z has helped the preowned clothing market grow much faster than retail apparel sales in the US, independent market intelligence firm GlobalData estimated in a report with resale platform ThredUp.
For companies that make new clothes, mending programs and classes address “some deeper consumer needs and consumer behaviors at the moment,” GlobalData retail analyst Neil Saunders says.
“It puts a halo on the brand,” he adds.
But skeptics say the environmental impact of retailer repairs is limited
The hands-on response from mass-market retailers, especially fast-fashion chains like Primark, Zara, and H&M, has generated interest as well as skepticism.
Zara, which has its headquarters in Spain, launched a digital platform in 2022 for customers to resell their used pieces and to request basic alterations and repairs. The program is available in 17 of the nearly 100 countries where the trend-driven retailer operates.
Ireland-based Primark has focused more on customer education. The value-focused retailer hosts free “Love it for Longer” events, where customers are taught skills like replacing zippers and buttons.
“Learning how to repair and care for clothing is probably one of the simplest but absolutely totally effective ways that we can reduce waste and also extend the lifetime of whatever we buy,” Vicki Swain, Primark’s product longevity and partnership lead, says.
Kate Fletcher, a professor of sustainability, design, and fashion systems at England’s Manchester Metropolitan University, says that she thinks popular retailers are well-meaning, but she doubts their repair initiatives will have much environmental impact.
“The fashion sector’s primary source of impact is due to the overproduction of pieces and growing volumes of garments created,” Fletcher says. “Repairing a garment in store happens in addition to these growing production volumes, not instead of them.”
Making mending work in retail is challenging because it’s labor intensive and must be priced low enough to entice customers, Saunders, of GlobalData, said. Signals from consumers also are mixed, he says.
“I think younger shoppers still shop fast fashion because even though it goes against some of their principles, it is one of the most accessible parts of the market,” Saunders says. “But what they’re doing as well, though, is they’re buying into alternative channels like resale. And they’re having things repaired.”
Read the full story at lifestyle.inquirer.net
