LONDON – Fashion Revolution founder Orsola de Castro has welcomed the furore around Burberry’s stock incineration, believing the resulting bad publicity could tip the scales on mass consumption. “I am so bloody happy that this story has broken,” she told us, in an exclusive interview to appear in the next printed edition of Apparel Insider. “It is almost as if you could look at mass production as an experiment gone wrong.”
She believes the story has forced the fashion industry to turn in on itself and confront it’s “dirty secret,” namely, waste. Fast fashion, luxury, mainstream – the issue is, De Castro says, prevalent across the board.
“The clothing they have burned, the story they have buried,” she continues. “Waste has been my primary area of research. I have visited so many garment factories where owners have told me, off the record, the amount of waste being landfilled and incinerated. Brands have not yet found the right way to communicate this in a way that is justifiable – because it isn’t.”
“This is actually almost a bigger scandal almost than child labour in the 1990s,” De Castro suggests. “What we are looking at is endemic inefficiency which is causing harm to the environment and to people.
“We are asking supply chain workers to work way above a normal day’s work. We are over using resources for this constant availability of production. Then we are burning the excess.
“This just shows how nonsensical the fashion industry has become.”
The full interview will appear in the next printed edition of Apparel Insider. To subscribe, click HERE.