Bonus-malus against “fast fashion”, green or “anti-poor” bills?

“So hot, so classy!”, ticked Antoine Vermorel-Marques, LR deputy, presenting shoes of the alleged Sheen Order (pronounced chi’in), “treated with phthalates, a substance that is an endocrine disruptor that causes us can make All sterile.

In this video posted on the youth’s favorite social network, Antoine Vermorel-Marquez parodies “hauls”, very common videos on the accounts of fashion and beauty influencers in which the latter unpack their freshly delivered packages and present the purchased items to their community (or brand offered free by), to promote them. The aim of the Lauer MP’s video: to introduce a bill he has just introduced in the National Assembly to fight “fast fashion”.

The text, which will be debated in parliament next spring, aims to support the French textile industry in combating the threat of “fast fashion” and provides for the imposition of a 5 euro fine for any item purchased on online over-the-counter sites. Over 1,000 models per day.

A very widespread trend in the fashion industry, “fast fashion” (“fast fashion” in French), is based on the extremely rapid renewal of collections based on the frantic pace of production. Produced at low prices – the average price of an item sold by Sheen: 7 euros – this “disposable” Fashion has, as Oxfam France points out, “catastrophic social and environmental consequences”.

If many brands are concerned, Antoine Vermorel-Marques is specifically targeting the Asian group Shen, (made in China and based in Singapore) which, with 6,000 to 11,000 new models added to its online catalog every day, also flew in the range of “ Is going. ultra-fast fashion”, is regularly singled out for the environmental, climate and social consequences of its economic model and for “destroying the French textile industry”.

However, rarely introduced, the bill has provoked the anger of many consumers, for whom this penalty system will be another tax put in place by France, which will penalize more than all small budgets fond of the proposed service. Ready-to-wear online by the world’s leader in low prices.

“Another step towards injustice”

“If a French MP doesn’t invent a tax, does he have a guarantee?” ‘Dress and there’s a clean sweep’ mocks the user, we can still read.

Offering skirts, tops, pants and all kinds of accessories for less than 10 euros, Shane – and others like Temu, Boohoo, etc. – entices and fills the closets of more and more customers every year.

“In France, there is a gap between our beliefs, the awareness that we must make efforts and the acceptability of actions taken in the name of these issues”, analyzes Cécile Dessaunay, director of studies for the consultancy firm Futuribles. Potential where it analyzes changes in society, lifestyle and consumption.

In this logic, she says, reactions to the proposal to introduce a “tax” on the purchase of products from “fast fashion” sites seem skin-deep “because it affects what is supposed to be freedom of consumption, and overall you shouldn’t touch it.” .

However, the analyst recalls, there is a “bonus” dimension to this measure to make sustainable clothing accessible.

In an interview with Usbek&Rica, Antoine Vermorel-Marques explained how this bonus works. While a 5 euro fine will be added to the purchase of an item on the “fast fashion” site, “on the contrary, (if) you buy a T-shirt that respects our environment, produced in France or in Europe, you have a maximum bonus of 5 euros,” he explained. is “The key is that it’s not an additional tax. We’re not here to take money from you. We’re just here to tell you: ‘If you pollute, you pay. If you don’t pollute, You earn.’ As a result, it’s a win-win for both the consumer and the planet.”

“You don’t even understand that it’s not a ‘tax’, products like Sheen, Ali(Express), etc are already taxed, here we’re talking about fines to penalize those who participate in ‘fast fashion'”, and By extension of human overexploitation and excess of waste”, we can read in this sense on X’s user account.

“This is not the first time that we have used this type of lever,” explains Cécile Dessaunay, particularly the bonus system applied in the automobile sector in France, but also the reduction of VAT applied by Sweden for the repair of items.

Also, if the analyst accepts the need to dress, he points to the extreme posture adopted by many consumers (especially young people) who buy far more clothes than they need, low prices encouraging overconsumption.

“I’m poor, but I have values”

“Earlier, the norm was to have fewer clothes, but that lasted longer. We paid more for them, but we made them last,” he explains. “Today, we have moved away from this logic: we have less robust clothes, which last less long, and we are always in the habit of having more because they cost less.”

If some people say on social networks: “fast fashion for some, the only way to dress for others”, other consumers do not see it that way. “I’m poor, but I don’t order from these sites because I have values! You can be poor and have values!!”

On this point, Cécile Désaunay “raises a kind of enclosure that consists in thinking that to be able to dress cheaply, one must buy clothes made in China, as if there is no alternative”, she says. , particularly the second-hand market, to which she devoted an article on the Futuribles website.

“The challenge in the textile sector is that associations and other recycling centers are drowning in clothes,” the expert points out. “Given the amount of clothing already on Earth, if we stopped making clothes, we would still be able to clothe humanity for a hundred years,” she continues. “Fashion, Fake or Not?” by Catherine Dauriac and Isabelle Brockman. An incident already mentioned in the book, which illustrates the polluting industry of the fashion sector.

However, “paradoxically, second-hand buying can still be rejected, or even rejected by the poorest classes” notes Cécile Dessaunay, evoking the social stigma this market can generate.

At the end of 2023, Shane had a 13% market share by value in its sector in France, ahead of Vinted, a famous brand that sells second-hand clothes, which ranks first among the French’s favorite fashion brands, according to a report Jocko shopping app made for LSA magazine.

“We are reaching the end of the logic of ‘fast fashion'”, believes Cécile Dessaunay. The bonus-malus proposal must still be debated; And whether it is adopted or not, according to the analyst, “is an excuse to re-examine the value of the things we buy.” Indeed, she says, “If it’s not expensive, it’s because there’s a trade-off. In this case, the trade-off is environmental.”

“Fast fashion” brands are regularly singled out for their environmental consequences (water, oil consumption, chemical pollutants for dyes), climate (CO emissions).₂

) and the social aspects of their economic model. The Friends of the Earth Association, which understands its operations, estimates the brand’s production at 1 million garments per day, or between 15,000 and 20,000 tons of CO.₂ issued

Far from targeting only the Chinese company, the association explains that physical brands such as Zara, H&M, Primark and Uniqlo are not excluded. What they “don’t do in terms of the quantity of models offered, they make up for in the quantity produced as well as human rights exploitation”, she clarifies, while all these brands have been accused of profiteering or making a profit. Especially the forced labor of Uyghurs in China.

Also readTen years after the Rana Plaza tragedy, fast fashion is still to blame

The Wall Street Journal reports that in 2022, Shane will record revenues of nearly $23 billion. For 2023, its turnover is estimated to be around 32 billion.