How can brands sell sustainable fashion, sustainably?

Would you ever buy a garment without seeing a photo of it first? Last week, Swedish brand Asket invited its customers to do just that in a three-day “experiment” that saw its e-commerce website wiped of product imagery. But will it work?

E-commerce product pages have the potential to help address fashion’s existential problems of overproduction and overconsumption, where brands have an opportunity to encourage slower consumption, and customers have a chance to see how brands are trying to improve production.

A successful product page is one that helps customers select the right product, minimising waste, says Rebecca Morter, founder of London-based multi-brand retailer Lone Design Club (LDC), which hosts pop-ups to help direct-to-consumer brands reap the benefits of physical retail. This means helping people find the right size, as fit is a consistent driver of high returns.

For a long time, fashion communicators have managed to escape criticism for their role in supporting overproduction and promoting overconsumption, but that is changing.

The Sustainable Fashion Communication Playbook, launched last year by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the UN Fashion Charter for Climate Change (UNFCCC), calls on fashion communicators to recognise their historic impact when it comes to exacerbating the climate crisis, and to lend their skills towards sustainability goals instead.

Discover more sustainability coverage from the fashion industry, here.

We want to see you!

Fashion Futures is coming to New York! Join Vogue Business at Fashion Futures for an interactive afternoon that will get to the heart of how tech and innovation are changing the fashion industry for the better.

Through intimate discussions and thought-provoking keynote sessions, we will hear from the front lines on how brands are making those changes now — and the necessary mindsets to get there.

Save your place now.

Elsewhere in the industry this week:

• What the new retinol rules mean for beauty brands.
• A new BBC documentary found children as young as five picking jasmine from 3am in an Egyptian village responsible for producing 75% of the country’s jasmine.
• Who won Cannes on social media?
• At the Vivatech conference in Paris, LVMH chairman and CEO Bernard Arnault presented the top award to FancyTech, which uses generative artificial intelligence to create videos from 3D product models.
• Vogue Business gets an inside look at the Depop turnaround.
• Even though the repair market has developed rapidly in recent years, it still faces systemic and cultural challenges.

Join Vogue to celebrate a century of French fashion and athletics!

Now in its third year, Vogue World is arriving in Paris.

The show—taking place on Sunday, June 23 on the Place Vendôme—will be a spectacle of fashion and sports accompanied by live performances celebrating the creativity and rich history of the City of Lights.

Reserve your space now.