How to revive the UK fashion industry – and help save the environment

Tech-driven supply chains and the country’s pool of creative talent can produce more sustainable clothes

However you measure it – economic impact, cultural influence – Britain’s fashion industry is significant. And now it’s facing two big crises: the cost of living crunch affecting people’s wallets and the climate crisis affecting our planet.

The good news is that the UK’S fashion industry can help address both challenges. But doing so will require two changes.

First, fundamentally reimagining the business models and supply chains of fashion. Second, tapping into the force that powered the UK’S rise to become one of the world’s great fashion hubs: its creative talent.

Let’s start with the cost of living crisis. It’s no secret that many people in the UK are struggling as costs have risen faster than wages. Yet even in hard times – and, you could argue, especially in hard times – people turn to fashion to feel good about themselves and to express who they are. Many iconic British fashion names, however, are beyond most customers’ budgets (especially in times like these), and so many people understandably turn to the fashion they can afford: fast fashion. But that, as we all know, doesn’t help the other crisis – the climate crisis.

According to research by Mckinsey, “for every five garments produced” by fast fashion, “the equivalent of three end up in a landfill or are incinerated each year”. Research by KPMG suggests that two out of every three customers in the UK care about sustainability. That means many British customers are having to choose between their climate principles and their budget.

It’s not that fashion companies are opposed to these issues, but their supply chains and business models lock them into those kinds of trade-offs. Do you create bespoke items and charge a premium for the work it entails – and thereby price out many people struggling with a cost of living crisis? Or do you massproduce certain sizes and styles, the efficiency of which enables you to charge less – but which creates a lot of excess inventory (in other words, waste) in the process?

Any meaningful way forward has to begin by rethinking the business of fashion – its supply chains and business models.

Here’s what that looks like: for starters, it’s built from the ground up using technology, rather than retrofitted with tech.

It would be a supply chain designed to enable small-batch, on-demand production. In other words, a process that’s not built around a huge amount of waste, nor one that passes on the cost of that waste to customers (or to the earth). Crucially, that data-driven, tech-powered model would get better every day at understanding and connecting customers, creators and supply-chain partners.

For UK customers (and customers anywhere, actually), that means more personalised clothes at more affordable prices.

For the UK’S massive pool of creative talent, that means much lower barriers to seeing your designs or dreams become tangible products (and possibly a career).

Shein X, for instance, has had more than 200 British creators participate in its Designer Incubator programme – which enables these designers to connect with customers across 150 countries, and sell products to them with a speed and accuracy that was not possible a decade ago.

There’s no reason, given the immense talent here in the UK, that as the incubator programme expands, it could not feature 2,000 – or 20,000 – British creators who share their ideas and products.

That’s not to suggest that any single programme or business is the solution. But it is to say that a programme, a business, can be part of the solution. And at a time when the country’s fashion industry is facing historic challenges, it seems clear that everyone benefits when we find ways to tap into the UK’S tremendous creative talent.