Environmental Impact and Sustainable Solutions
Honestly, I can’t get past this: every time a designer slashes prices, it’s not just a business move—it’s a giant waste problem nobody wants to talk about. That discounted silk shirt? The unsold “it” bag? They end up somewhere, usually not where you think. Sometimes they just rot in a warehouse. Sometimes they get shipped off to a place you can’t find on a map.
Waste and Landfills
So, Burberry dumps last season’s coats. Or Prada. Fine, we’ve all heard it. But what happens next? Richemont literally destroyed over £400 million in watches, and it wasn’t about quality. Just market games (Good On You, 2024). Dumping high-end stock doesn’t make it disappear—unsold jackets pile up, and I’ve seen fabric-mix deadstock that just… sits there, not decomposing, despite the “eco” claims.
Ten percent of the world’s carbon emissions come from fashion (Forbes, 2024). If someone invents a fabric that eats itself, sign me up. Until then, brands are tossing cotton, polyester, cashmere into landfills. Doesn’t matter if it’s purses or clown shoes. The real issue? Materials. Recycled polyester? Lasted me six months before it turned into a lint magnet.
Adopting Sustainable Practices
The EU’s getting involved now—new rules, more pressure. Donating excess inventory is just the tip of the iceberg (Earth Day, 2025). Some brands recycle, but mostly I see them turning last season’s failed leggings into insulation or industrial rags. “Circular economy” is the buzzword, but let’s be honest: half the time, unsold stuff just moves to a discount outlet and suddenly it’s not “waste” anymore.
Materials are 92% of fashion’s emissions (Forbes, 2024). If brands actually used sustainable stuff—hemp, Tencel, recycled bottles—maybe we wouldn’t have dumps full of doomed blazers. Recycling isn’t magic. Sometimes, the “eco” fabrics take more energy to process than the originals. My tailor friend tried remanufacturing “eco” wool and nearly fainted at the electricity bill.
Brand Responses to Unsold Goods Controversies
If you’ve ever scrolled through a luxury fashion thread, you know it’s seconds before someone brings up burning handbags. LVMH, Kering, Burberry, Chanel—same story. Nothing goes viral faster than a TikTok of half-burned purses, but everyone forgets this is just routine, buried in the financials. Donating? Sure, but when you’re sitting on €3.2 billion in monogram wallets, it’s not that simple.
Destruction of Unsold Stock
It’s never just “throw it out.” Merch planners treat “brand equity” like a nervous pet. Louis Vuitton and Chanel? They’d rather torch inventory than see it on a discount site. French government sources say 10,000–20,000 tonnes of textiles get destroyed in France yearly—sometimes more than two Eiffel Towers’ worth. That’s not PR, that’s just policy. Keeps “gray market” sellers away, supposedly.
Bernstein’s Luca Solca says leftover inventory can hit 13% of retail sales. Scarcity, right? Repurposing gets pitched, but when’s the last time you saw a “reborn” collection at full price? Donated stock runs into resale bans and accounting headaches. There’s no fix that makes everyone happy.
Public Backlash and Transparency Efforts
Blink and you’ll miss it—petitions, exposés, influencer outrage, and suddenly the PR team’s digging out their “sustainability” slides. Burberry’s $38 million bonfire in 2018? Global headlines, but everyone skipped the fine print where this is just… normal.
Transparency is mostly smoke and mirrors. Brands drop “impact reports” and make vague circularity promises, but hard numbers? Not so much. LVMH brags about supply chain traceability but still sits on billions in inventory (Business of Fashion). What’s missing? Actual data, donor lists—anything real. I hear rumors about pilot projects—tiny charity donations, “personalized” sales—but it’s a drop in the bucket. Mostly just PR damage control with a recycled bow.
Case Studies of Major Luxury Brands
Forget everything you think you know about luxury pricing this year. Inventory mountains, weird demand spikes, profit targets—none of it lines up. I’m watching chaos, not a “strategy.” It’s not just markdown season, it’s brands throwing spaghetti at the wall.
Burberry’s Approach
Burberry’s Instagram tries to scream “relevance,” but then prices nosedive at end-of-season sales. Price hikes? Up 50% since 2019 (thanks, HSBC), but nobody’s buying—so now there’s a trench coat glut. CEO Jonathan Akeroyd even admitted on calls that sell-through rates dropped, but the PR machine won’t stop hyping “British timelessness.” If “timeless” means unsold stock and staffers gossiping about “selective discounting,” then sure.
I cornered a former flagship associate who said they’re quietly dumping product into third-party outlets. Exclusivity? Not so much. No official word on permanent price drops, but “temporary incentives” keep sticking around. Stock price is a yo-yo—investors aren’t buying the “short-term reset” story. Market data (Bain, 2025) says the whole luxury sector’s dipping: minus 2% sales expected after last year’s double-digit growth.
