2021 OCTOBER
SUSTAINABLE FASHION REPORT
- FRANCE
By Andrew Sia
When you think about sustainable fashion, you discovered that the secondhand clothing can actually reduce our consumption, and all of a sudden this opens up an opportunity.
The original report from Statista, Second Hand Apparel and Textiles in France which was a report of 101 pages. We tried to cover it with the selected heads of:
French Market
Purchase & Sales Channel
Factors Influencing Secondhand Consumption.
Collection & Pickup Points
Introduction
This is the follow up of the Global Sustainable Fashion Report that we started in our July issue. In that issue, we ran the numbers through for the worldwide revenue of the apparel market and the import and export countries. We also reported the second-hand personal luxury goods market.
The first market we reported was the United States. In this issue, we are going to talk about the French market. And because we are able to find more information about the French market, we will make a more lengthy report.
Before we started the writing the article, we made some research and found books that can give us more knowledge about the second-hand market for fashion for the French market. We made the book report for the month and we used the title as the following and you are welcome to read this article as well in order to know more about their fashion taste.
Why French Women Wear Vintage - and Other Secrets of Sustainable Style
Then we found another book
The Curated Closet: A Simple System for Discovering Your Personal Style and Building Your Dream Wardrobe
With so many style and shopping options, it can be difficult to create a streamlined closet of pieces that can be worn easily and confidently. In The Curated Closet, style writer Anuschka Rees presents a fascinatingly strategic approach to identifying, refining, and expressing personal style and building the ideal wardrobe to match it, with style and shopping strategies that women can use every day.
The book is full of ideas and probably we will write about it in our next book report.
We also believe that the resale of apparel is a way of slowing down our consumption of clothing and it is a sustainable approach. In the past we have emphasized the recycle of the materials and the use of biodegradable materials, but this reuse is more effective and can also solve our problem in a more approachable manner.
With this study we are going to learn how the French are approaching this problem.
For the world market, in 2019 the export of second-hand clothing and textile was $28 billion (€23.8 billion). This number quickly increased to 2020 to $33 billion (€28 billion). France is not even in its top eleven market, and it was only at €75 million. The top three markets are the United States at $737 million (€627 million), the United Kingdom at $527 Million (€448 million) and Germany at $385 million (€327 million).
Small items here would mean products in the entry level, unlike the medium and the large items.
Although garage sales and flea markets are the most popular, and those we can refer to the small items. It is interesting to see that the younger age groups are buying from the internet.
We can see the percentage have grown for those who have bought second-hand products online. It will be more interesting for us to know if the people have increased in buying second-hand product, or was it only buying through internet instead of thrift shops.
This pie-chart is showing the worldwide market in different sales channels for selling the second-hand luxury goods. In 2018, that second-hand market for the luxury products was estimated at $26 billion or €22 billion.
This is showing the online marketplaces for the reselling of the second-hand clothes in France in 2018. The most used website, Vinted, and followed by Leboncoin.
During this time of the pandemic, the French have switched to shop for clothing online. These are the brands that are most popular on the Vinted.fr and it is interesting to know.
This is the survey that the French used to ask the consumers. This behavior of buying clothes from the second-hand market is growing.
We can also see the categories of those second-hand market.
This chart shows us the social status of those who are buying second-hand clothing and also the types of clothing.
This chart shows us the age groups, and on the whole, it is quite balanced.
This has to do with the pre-owned luxury goods and it is not to our surprise that handbags are the most popular.
This has to do with the consumer behavior when they are purchasing something and their awareness of the environmental issues has increased.
Again, this is the question of their awareness. I believe that the percentage will increase.
This question is for the age groups. And again it is quite evenly among all age groups.
This is going into the different professions. In general, the public can accept quite readily.
This is telling us the gender’s willingness.
This is the study across the country.
To know the pickup point for the used textiles is important.
We can see the pick-up points have increased quite significantly.
Conclusion
This reported as created by Statista is very comprehensive. It can give us a lot of thoughts. The second-hand market is a business by itself. It is worth the effort to study and to make a feasible study.
You could be surprised that people are already in this business. It is a business of $33 billion and it is still growing without creating any impact on the world’s environment.