Slide 8
Slide 8 text
Chavie Lieber
Why do brands destroy perfectly good merchandise?
Timo Rissanen
The simplest answer across the board is that today,
quantitatively, there’s more stuff than there ever has
been before. Fashion cycles have also gotten shorter
because of the internet and fast fashion, so there’s a
push to constantly put new merchandise out on the
market. So when you combine these two, we are now
literally at a place where we no longer have anywhere
for this stuff to go other than up a chimney.
Chavie Lieber
Is it just clothing that gets destroyed?
Timo Rissanen
No, this is not limited to apparel. I saw a few months
ago that Amazon was being called out in Germany
for destroying tons of returned items, like mattresses,
washing machines, dishwashers, and cellphones.
Chavie Lieber
Where does the actual destroying happen?
Timo Rissanen
A lot of it is done in India. There’s one town in India,
Panipat, that specializes in shredding, and there’s a
horrendous short film that documents women shredding
clothes that are brand new. The film shows the women
speculating that water in the West must be so expen-
sive, and that people can’t afford to do their laundry,
and so that’s why it’s cheaper for them to throw stuff
out. Hearing that is really uncomfortable. Incineration
happens everywhere, from America to Sweden.
Chavie Lieber
What are some of the environmental impacts of
destroying excess inventory?
Timo Rissanen
The most obvious one is the carbon emission from burn-
ing. We should be moving away from all forms of burn-
ing. Polyester now accounts for about 60 percent of the
total fiber market, and it comes from oil. So you could
make the case that when we burn polyester, we are
burning oil. There is a contribution to CO2 that is hap-
pening there, and there’s also a ton of chemicals and
finishings embedded in clothing and textiles through
the dyeing. When this stuff is burned, it filters into the air
But really, where it gets insane is thinking about clothes
that were never worn in the first place. The fabric was
made, the garments were made, the labor was put in,
and then the stuff gets burned. It represents all kinds of
different waste across the system.
Chavie Lieber
Why can’t excess inventory be recycled or reused?
Timo Rissanen
Some of it can be. Different kinds of garments are easier
than others. One way to recycle clothing is to shred it
and to turn it into insulation, and there are fabrics that
are quite good at being turning into new fiber, spun into
yarn, and then woven into clothes. But the minute you
start mixing fibers, like polyester with cotton, the options
for recycling become more limited. Then there’s the
obstacles of buttons and zippers. Before a garment can
be put through a shredder, all the buttons and zippers
must be removed, and that takes manual labor. With
any kind of waste management like this, there’s a cost
attached to it, and it’s often cheaper just to destroy it.
Chavie Lieber
Why can’t the clothing be donated?
Timo Rissanen
Historically, a lot of the donations have gone to Africa,
Latin America, South America, and to some countries
in Asia. But in the last couple of years, a number of Af-
rican countries, like Kenya and Uganda, have actually
banned the importation of secondhand clothing from
the West. It suppresses their own textile and apparel
industry, since they can’t compete with the volume and
the very low price of the secondhand goods.
Chavie Lieber
What is the theory for luxury brands destroying their
extra merch?
Timo Rissanen
They see discounts and donating as a way to deval-
ue their brand. They want to control how and where
and at what price their goods are sold. You can go to
a place like Century 21 in New York and you’ll find
certain brands have their stock there that’s two or three
seasons old and heavily discounted. Some brands
are clearly fine with that, and others are not.
Chavie Lieber
Wouldn’t they rather earn a profit than nothing at all?
Wouldn’t Chanel prefer to mark down its $3,500 bag
by $300 and still make $3,000?
Timo Rissanen
This is where we get to the thing that nobody wants
to talk about: The retail price of a luxury product has
nothing to do with its actual value. When you buy
something from Chanel or Gucci and you pay full
retail, that money is actually paying for the massive
advertising campaigns. If Chanel destroys a dress it
IN CONVERSA TION
tried to sell for $1,200, it hasn’t really lost $1,200.
I don’t think Chanel even paid $100 [to make] that
dress. And the money they’d lose would probably just
be recouped through fragrances.
Chavie Lieber
As someone who is a part of the fashion world, can
you understand the argument for destroying things in
order to save a company’s prestige factor?
Timo Rissanen
No. I cannot. We have arrived at a point where I think
we need to have some very honest conversations
about what type of values this industry has.
Chavie Lieber
Do you think companies will follow in Burberry’s foot-
steps and stop destroying their merch?
Timo Rissanen
I think so. I do think it will take some time because we
are talking about a whole system, and it will not come
to a halt because of a little bit of bad publicity. But I do
think that being called out forces brands to take a look
at what’s happening and start to have conversations
about what they can do about it.
Chavie Lieber
What can shoppers do?
Timo Rissanen
On a very simple level, figure out which things bring
you the most satisfaction and then buy those things.
We are all prone to impulse-buying, which is what I’d
encourage to limit. I also recommend buying second-
hand if you are interested in environmental impact.
With Chaive Lieber and Timo Rissanen
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