Every year, Black Friday seems to get more intense: sales start earlier, last longer and drive prices down further. This year, analysts and experts predict that the shopping event will trigger a spike in sales despite a global slowdown in demand for luxury goods, as well as ongoing shipping and logistics challenges.
Black Friday is a behemoth of overconsumption. On the fringes of sustainable fashion, there is a faction that stands against it. Certain brands have always opted to shut up shop on Black Friday or refused to put items on sale, but there is a growing middle ground, where companies try to leverage the increased footfall and consumer attention to promote more sustainable or circular practices. Here, Vogue Business highlights five alternative ways to engage.
Vestiaire Collective x The Or Foundation
Luxury resale platform Vestiaire Collection and US-Ghanaian non-profit The Or Foundation have a history of sustainable fashion activism. The Or Foundation has hosted Vestiaire Collective employees at Kantamanto Market (said to be the largest secondhand clothing market in West Africa); Vestiaire Collective has hosted Kantamanto resellers in Paris; and the two organisations have joined forces to lobby the European Union to make the extended producer responsibility regulation more inclusive. Now, they are turning their attention to the “consumer frenzy” surrounding Black Friday, using the shopping event to launch a collection created by Ghanaian designers from upcycled materials from Kantamanto Market on Vestiaire Collective.
The collection will feature 29 one-off items, including tapestry jackets, denim adorned with embroidery and appliqués, and patchwork bags. Items will be available from Black Friday onwards across the US and Europe. Proceeds will be shared among the featured designers and the Kantamanto community via The Or Foundation’s Secondhand Solidarity Fund, according to Vestiaire Collective.
“Launching this collection on Black Friday — a day that has waste and overconsumption so explicitly woven into its DNA — highlights the innovation, mastery and creativity that comes out of Accra’s Kantamanto, the largest secondhand market in the world, in stark contrast to what brands are offering and what people are typically shopping for on this day,” says Liz Ricketts, co-founder and executive director of The Or Foundation. “Black Friday is just one day a year, but the overconsumption habits that drive it are pervasive year-round fueled by brands. … We hope this [collection] encourages people to take stock of and re-evaluate their relationship with clothes.”
