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Archive
Every piece on the site, in section order
Twenty-five pieces across four sections. The section pages carry the same list with pictures; this one is the register.
| Ultra-fast — 7 pieces | ||
|---|---|---|
| § 1.1 | The Bill That Named Two Companies | The French National Assembly's vote of 14 March 2024 introduced a per-item levy and an advertising ban aimed at businesses releasing garments above defined frequency thresholds. |
| § 1.2 | Shein's Model, and the IPO It Has Not Completed | Shein's on-demand micro-batch production model — small test runs scaled rapidly against live sales data — and the sequence of IPO attempts in New York, then London, as of mid-2025. |
| § 1.3 | Temu Arrived With the Largest Advertising Budget Anyone Had Seen | Temu's entry into European and US markets from 2022 was accompanied by an advertising spend — including Super Bowl placements — that set records for a marketplace at that stage. |
| § 1.4 | Until 2 May 2025 the Parcel Came In Duty-Free | The US de minimis rule exempted imports valued under $800 from duty and formal customs entry. |
| § 1.5 | The Leicester Garment Quarter, 2020 and After | In 2020 a Sunday Times investigation found garment workers in Leicester factories supplying Boohoo paid below the minimum wage; the findings were subsequently examined by the Boohoo-commissioned Levitt review and by parliamentary inquiry. |
| § 1.6 | ASOS and Zara Are Not the Same Thing | ASOS and Zara are often grouped with ultra-fast fashion but occupy distinct positions by SKU count, production geography, and disclosed environmental commitments. |
| § 1.7 | What SKU Count Actually Tells You | Published estimates of Shein's daily new-style count range from 2,000 to 10,000 depending on the methodology and the date of the study; Zara releases roughly 20,000 new styles a year. |
| Regulation — 6 pieces | ||
| § 2.1 | The Passport That Has to Fit on a Label | Regulation (EU) 2024/1781, in force from 18 July 2024, provides for the digital product passport as the primary disclosure instrument for textiles. |
| § 2.2 | Separate Collection, and Who Pays for It | From 1 January 2025 the revised Waste Framework Directive required every EU member state to provide separate collection for textiles. |
| § 2.3 | Four Rules, Four Dates, and One Compliance Calendar | A structured walkthrough of the EU textile regulatory sequence: the Ecodesign Regulation (July 2024), mandatory separate collection (January 2025), the extended producer responsibility scheme (timeline from 2025 revision), and the Green Claims Directive advertising ban (September 2026). |
| § 2.4 | After September 2026 'Eco' Will Need a Number Behind It | Directive (EU) 2024/825 bans generic environmental claims — 'sustainable', 'eco-friendly', 'green', 'conscious' — without substantiation from 27 September 2026. |
| § 2.5 | Undertakings, Not Fines | The UK Competition and Markets Authority opened its fashion green-claims investigation in July 2022 and secured undertakings — not fines — from ASOS, Boohoo and Asda in March 2024. |
| § 2.6 | The Fashion Act, Still a Bill | New York's Fashion Sustainability and Social Accountability Act would require fashion companies above $100 million in annual revenue to map and disclose their supply chains and set emissions reduction targets. |
| Materials — 6 pieces | ||
| § 3.1 | Polyester Is 54 Per Cent of It | Textile Exchange's Materials Market Report 2023 put global fibre production at approximately 116 million tonnes for 2022, with polyester accounting for 54 per cent of that total. |
| § 3.2 | What Better Cotton's Audit Actually Checks | Better Cotton is the largest cotton certification scheme by volume, covering roughly a quarter of global production, but its chain-of-custody model does not trace certified cotton to a specific garment. |
| § 3.3 | Which Mills Canopy Names and Which It Does Not | Canopy's Hot Button Ranking scores viscose and lyocell producers on their sourcing from ancient and endangered forests. |
| § 3.4 | What the Label 'Plant-Based Leather' Is Describing | Products described as mushroom leather, apple leather, cactus leather or grape leather are composite materials whose substrate is typically polyurethane; the bio-derived component varies in proportion from under 10 per cent to over 50 per cent depending on the product and the study. |
| § 3.5 | The Microfibre Problem Has a Number but Not Yet a Standard | Multiple peer-reviewed studies have quantified synthetic microfibre shedding from laundering, but the figures vary by two orders of magnitude depending on fabric type, wash conditions and measurement method. |
| § 3.6 | From the Accord to the International Accord | The original Bangladesh Accord on Fire and Building Safety, signed after Rana Plaza in 2013, was succeeded by the International Accord for Health and Safety in the Textile and Garment Industry in 2021, extended through 2025 and now operational in Pakistan as well. |
| Who measures — 6 pieces | ||
| § 4.1 | The Higg Score Came Off the Label | In June 2022 the Norwegian Consumer Authority found consumer-facing claims built on the Higg Materials Sustainability Index misleading; the Sustainable Apparel Coalition subsequently suspended the consumer-facing Higg Index MSI. |
| § 4.2 | ThredUp Publishes the Resale Numbers — It Is Also a Resale Company | ThredUp's annual Resale Report is the most widely cited source for secondhand market size projections, but it is produced by a company with a commercial interest in the growth of that market. |
| § 4.3 | What Textile Exchange Counts and How | Textile Exchange's Materials Market Report is the primary source for global fibre production totals and certified-material market shares, cited by the EU in regulatory impact assessments. |
| § 4.4 | Four Indexes, Four Definitions of Transparent | The Fashion Transparency Index (Fashion Revolution), the Corporate Human Rights Benchmark, the Know The Chain Benchmark and the Dow Jones Sustainability Index each measure clothing-company disclosure but weight different things and produce different rankings for the same companies. |
| § 4.5 | Vestiaire Collective Drew a Line at Fast Fashion in 2022 | In September 2022 Vestiaire Collective began removing fast-fashion brands from its platform, starting with around 100 brands and expanding the list over subsequent phases. |
| § 4.6 | Vinted Reached Profitability While the Primary Market Slowed | Vinted reported its first profitable year in 2023 as LVMH and Kering posted their first real revenue slowdown since the pandemic. |