What can we all do to help wastage of old lines?

[Harriet Kelsall]

Somthing that is often on my mind, is what the fashion industry does with last season's lines.

Now I am a jeweller so we are quite lucky.  If we do ever end up with precious materials that haven't sold, we can melt them down and make them into something else!  Also as most of what we make is a bespoke design or a one-off design so we almost never need to do this.

However we also do have some lines of dress jewellery which are more fashiony items.  Luckily we hand make everything in small runs but we stil sometimes end up with a few things that don't sell.

I'm guessing that in clothing industry this kind of waste must be in a much worse as its hard to rework and reuse these kinds of materials.  So what do you all do with them?

I know we can have a 'sale' and try to sell things really cheaply but there will inevitibly always be some left over.

Can do something ethical about all of this 'waste'.  Is there a brand out there who would buy (very cheaply) these lines and sell them for us elsewhere?  Can we swop stock with eachother or something?  Or could they somehow be donated to charity en-masse in a way that doesn't damage our brands?

[Rebecca Hall]

Perhaps they could go to arts students/colleges where fashion, drama or arts are taught? They could be bought at a discount and then used in projects for students to copy designs or shapes, upcycle, or be used as costumes? Then they wouldn't be going to waste? In return perhaps you could have your shop/brand logo featured in some of their advertising?

  Bex