The case for European policies for progressive regulation of ultra-fast fashion: An exploratory study of the possibilities of targeted regulation

Sammanfattning

The emergence of ultra-fast fashion (UFF) has become an increasingly discussed phenomenon in recent years. However, there is limited research on what differentiates the UFF business models from the rest of the sector, or how emerging textile policy will affect the business model. Exnovation, or the deliberate phasing out of certain practices, has received increasing attention in research, and has been suggested as possibly applicable to textiles. This exploratory qualitative study seeks to explore UFF’s qualitative characteristics, emerging policies in the EU and their impact on the business model, and what improvements could be applied to these policies to facilitate the phasing out, or exnovation, of UFF as it by some is described as a more intensive and resource demanding version of fast fashion. The main methods employed were document analyses and 11 expert interviews, as well as a review of a French legislative proposal, which is the only legislative action specifically targeting UFF to date. The findings of this study suggest that while UFF is perceived as distinct from fast fashion, there is limited benefit to separating them as UFF is generally described using qualitative characteristics in the data examined in the study. As such, policy targeting UFF will be limited by number of affected companies and the risk of circumvention of such as definition. Furthermore, by excluding conventional fast fashion policy would restrict the benefits of such policy, as the characteristics are largely present across the system rather than isolated to UFF. However, the results also indicate that the broader EU textile policies are limited by their focus on physical characteristics and efficiency. As such, this study suggests that policy would be strengthened by introducing interventions such as targeting of produced volumes, resource use or enforcement of ethical labour conditions to improve both social and environmental performance in the textile industry. Exnovation should thus targets the entire sector’s unsustainable practices, rather than be confined to only UFF companies.