The 2023 summer sales: rethinking our consumption for a sustainable future!

The promo madness is about to begin.

Since I took over Binette, it's the first time I've been confronted with this rather special time of year, the famous summer sales!

Why sales? Where is she from ? Balances exist, because annual production greatly exceeds that of consumption. Brands producing in large quantities (in order to reduce their costs) end up with unsold inventory. However, these stocks represent a shortfall for the company that produced them.

The solution invented in the ^19th century is therefore to organise, twice a year, substantial discounts in order to make a profit (even small, even negative, even if it is illegal) because storage represents too high a cost and that selling the ends of stocks is always "better than nothing". The sale concept was therefore born: the products from the autumn/winter collections are therefore destocked in January and the products from the spring/summer collections in June. The concept of sale therefore seemed rather reasonable in the 1960s: the end of collections, the remaining sizes, the few less popular products are on sale for a short period: it avoids waste, allows families with less means to dress and brands to limit losses and therefore their waste.

Over the past thirty years, the rise of fast fashion ("Fast fashion") has completely changed the codes of the fashion world: we produce faster, further, with poor quality raw materials that are not designed for last. If brands used to release 2 collections per year, fast fashion brands release at least 2 collections per month! The very concept of sales therefore loses all its meaning in this context: increase in prices & quantities sold before the sales period in order to be able to increase sales: yes, we are walking on our heads!

As a responsible fashion brand, the sales period is always tricky. Being in a market where everyone lowers prices, if you don't have a sale, you don't sell. If you don't sell, you don't survive in this huge, ultra-competitive jungle.

So I find myself with this dilemma:

• Make sales to make Binette better known and allow a greater number of people to have access to responsible products which are often less affordable, due to higher production costs (better remuneration for workers, better quality of fabrics, etc.)
• Protest against the system by “boycotting” sales, offering fair prices all year round and guaranteeing respectable margins to survive as a responsible brand.

This year, my choice is made, I will not make sales! The banana bag is a product that is sold all year round and I practice fair prices (low margins): I decide to do without.

I understand all the slow-fashion brands that decide to store certain products: sometimes reality catches up with us and it is impossible to do otherwise. The most important thing is to focus on the vices of this industry: source responsible products, work with workshops that respect workers and pay them the right price and finally produce reasoned quantities and limited collections.

Good luck to all for this intense period!

Penelope