Buying luxury fashion brands — sustainable or not?
High price or luxury brand name is definitely not a guarantee for more sustainable production methods, high enough wages for garment workers, or active work towards a more sustainable fashion industry. The price or brand is not even a guarantee for quality or product durability.
But what many luxury brands are a guarantee for, is the resell market.
In luxury, you only pay for the brand — or for the resell value?
Luxury brands can be hella expensive, and one might argue that you are only paying for the logo or name written in the product and the fantasy the brand is selling. But are you actually paying for the resell market, that has been built with the legacy, branding, and marketing efforts by these brands? I tried to work this out with a very concrete example.
In 2015, I bought a popular luxury handbag, Louis Vuitton Neverfull GM, and paid for it at the time around 1,100€. Today, I’d be able to sell the bag for about 500–600€, and in addition, the clutch bag that came with the bag for another 200€. Purely moneywise, I’d be able to get over half of the money back I paid 5 years ago (on top of the hundreds, if not thousands of times I’ve used the bag).
Now let’s assume, that instead of the LV Neverfull, during these five years I would have bought tote bags to my liking from fast fashion brands.
Considering the poorer materials and purely getting bored with the styles, I would have probably bought one new tote bag per year, adding a total of 5 tote bags. In cost, this would have added up to somewhere around 150–300€. Reselling these unbranded, a bit worn out, common tote bags would have been a struggle in the first place, but if I would have succeeded in selling them, I would have probably got around 10–15€ per bag, totaling to ~50€.
Looking purely at the costs, the price (after reselling) for me as a consumer in the first scenario would be~400€, and in the second scenario ~150€. At the moment of purchase comparing a designer bag of over 1,000€ and a similarly styled bag from a fast fashion store for 30€, the price difference is enormous. But when taking into account all of the factors (time of use, the durability of the material, resell, and brand value) the price difference is still significant but only a fraction of what it was (150€ vs. 400€).
Luxury in itself doesn’t guarantee sustainability
One could argue, that Louis Vuitton is not a sustainable fashion buy, and they would be somewhat right. LVMH isn’t a luxury house that has a clear statement on working towards a more sustainable fashion industry, despite some of their initiatives in the field, like the Life 360 project. They don’t state their sustainability actions transparently, give clear examples of their working conditions, or state clear info on the environmental impact of their materials, to name a few defects. But the topic of sustainability as a core theme in the company’s activities is another discussion.
Let’s focus back on looking at luxury items in the hands of consumers.
What many luxury brands are a guarantee for, is a resell market. This resell market can lengthen a product lifecycle tremendously, and this way build upon more sustainable fashion buying and use.
Let’s build upon the example we had in the last chapter.
I know there will be a resell market for my LV Neverfull still many years from now on, but the resell market for unbranded fast-fashion bags is already almost unexisting. When you walk out of a fast-fashion store with your purchase, the value in most of the cases drops immediately. It is not only the value of the product that drops, but the reselling process of fast-fashion items is difficult and time-consuming. Of course, it is not always easy for luxury items either, but in the case of many brands, you do have a guaranteed sale in the resell market if you are willing to sell at a certain price. No matter how low you come at a price with fast-fashion items, you still don’t have a guaranteed sale. And in most cases, we are forced to donate or throw away these fast-fashion buys.
The less we produce, the less we need to recycle and dispose of; the more sustainable we can become. LV Neverfull can last up to tens of years in use (in my own use, or resold). Fast-fashion bags usually lose their condition or desirability in a couple of years. Producing tens of bags, that also need to be disposed of rather quickly, instead of producing just one bag has a clear, much bigger negative environmental impact.
Luxury fashion is not an investment, but it can be a sustainable buying habit
Let’s make one thing clear though — I’m not saying a general luxury fashion item is an investment — but it definitely can be wise decision money and sustainability wise.
Buying less and ensuring a resell market for your purchases is one way to build sustainable fashion consumption habits. Building a more sustainable fashion industry is a complex problem and includes multiple different stakeholders. But when looking at the topic from the eyes of the consumer, lengthening the product lifecycle for your fashion purchases by x2 or even x10, can make a great impact on an individual level.
—
It’s definitely a multidimensional question, but in today’s fast-fashion-driven world, I believe buying luxury brands can be a way to build more sustainable fashion buying habits, and at the same time remind us to value and care for clothes differently. What do you think?
