Fashion on demand - "made-to-order"
The textile industry has become one of the least sustainable in the world. Millions of tons of clothing are thrown away every year, and only roughly 1% is recycled. It’s a problem that’s intensified by "fast-fashion".
With the current trend of impulse buying, online fashion shopping and the ease of a single click, 30% of the clothes produced worldwide are unsold. The result is a spiral of events that contribute negatively to the climate change that we are experiencing.
All industries are reinventing themselves to fit this new reality and incorporating sustainability as a trend, and our industry should not be any different. We have to change the way we manufacture, but also how we wear and design clothes. At DonandMerit we want the entire life cycle of our shirts to be done with one purpose: to generate the least possible environmental impact.
The first factor that conditions fashion is the buying cycle, and we have reversed this by choosing to sell on demand. With this strategy, we avoid the risk of producing and storing large stocks, which may go unsold, and we circumvent the waste of large quantities of raw materials.
Selling on demand works like this: the company makes a prediction of which products will be sold and produces a minimum stock. The company then sells the units that are available and once the stock runs low, the workshop will begin to produce small quantities that have already been pre-ordered by the customer.
What do you gain and how do we all benefit from this model? The customer will receive a high quality product, that’s been locally made, just for him/her, while avoiding the mass production, low-quality garments and poor working conditions for workers.
By betting on ourselves, we want to do our part in contributing to the necessary change that our industry requires: a winning formula for companies, consumers, and the planet.
We also recommend reading the following articles to know more about this topic:
"El estado de la moda 2020"