In support of Fashion Revolution’s anti-Black Friday campaign, we’re saying no to the sales and taking a stand against disposable fashion.
As a small business, we can’t afford to compete with the fashion brands offering up to 99% (!) off their lines. Our profit margins might be smaller but our commitment to fair fashion is far mightier. Where we really stand out is creating ethically made, timeless pieces and encouraging our customers to buy slowly and intentionally.
Which is why, this weekend, Wild Clouds isn’t holding a Black Friday sale.
Instead, for every purchase made between Black Friday and Cyber Monday, we’re donating £2 to Fashion Revolution and £2 to The Circle’s Women and Girls Solidarity Fund. This donation will help fund Fashion Revolution’s campaigning for a fair, safe and transparent fashion industry and support women and girls facing poverty, violence and inequality.
The holiday sales season promotes overproduction, impulsive purchases and excessive waste - everything we’re against. Here’s why we’re saying no to Black Friday:
It excuses overproduction - When fast fashion brands are in the business of producing up to 52 micro-seasons a year, Black Friday is the perfect opportunity to offload unsold stock at a shockingly discounted rate. This sees tops and dresses sold for as little as 4 pence. Buying into these deals gives brands the seal of approval to keep overproducing, with the guarantee they can later shift remaining stock in the sales. But what might seem like the bargain of the century comes at the cost of garment workers and the planet.
It fuels mindless consumerism - Brits are expected to spend a staggering £4.8 billion on Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales this year, with 29% of shoppers spending the most on clothing and shoes. While some of these purchases will be a necessity, Black Friday tends to convince us to buy stuff we don’t need. With flashing signs at the ready, brands feed into our fashion FOMO with the added reminder that sales are for a limited time only while stock lasts. The result? Impulsive, panic purchases that many shoppers later regret. In fact, an estimated 21% of Brits regretted a Black Friday purchase they made in 2018.
It’s a polluting, carbon-guzzling holiday - Retailers want you to think that Black Friday refers to when businesses turn profitable and “went into the black”, but the origins of this term are far more sinister. “Black” really referred to the visible smog caused by the congested queues to the sales in twentieth-century America. According to Money.co.uk’s Dirty Delivery Report, online Black Friday shopping will release approximately 386,243 tonnes of carbon emissions into the atmosphere - so Black Friday is a fitting title even now!
It generates excessive textile waste - Research by Green Alliance estimates that 80% of Black Friday goods - electrical items and clothes among them - end up as waste. Black Friday certainly celebrates the disposability of garments by encouraging the impulsive purchasing of temporarily trendy clothes. And when online fashion purchases have an average return rate of 25%, many Black Friday purchases will likely be sent back. The problem is that returned items are often binned instead of being resold. A scary number of clothes sold on Black Friday, then, are really destined for landfill.
It skews our perception of value - Did you know many brands overinflate discounts by hiking up the costs of their products beforehand to make savings seem greater than they are? This is just one tactic fast fashion brands use to skew our perception of value in favour of dirt cheap clothes. The reality is that Black Friday sales undercut small businesses and undervalue the true cost of our clothes.
If you can afford to boycott the sales, why not get involved with Fashion Revolution’s campaign! For more information, tweet templates and shareable posts, visit their website and take a stand against overproduction, overconsumption and waste.