Why The Fashion is the Perfect Case for Post Growth
At first glance, fashion may seem like the very prototype of growth economies: new collections, seasonal turnover, constant novelty, global markets and advertising. But if we look deeper, we can see that fashion also contains the seeds of a post-growth paradigm: cycles, craft, meaning, cultural expression, local economies, repair and reuse. In other words, fashion can be art not consumption, quality not quantity, circular not expansion, and justice not exploitation. To move the fashion industry beyond growth is to reclaim those seeds and resist the logic of disposability.
Below, I trace how fashion’s deeper history and current conditions point toward a post-growth transition, and what interventions (policy, public support, institutional change) must accompany it.
The roots: fashion as cultural expression before industrial growth
Fashion, clothing, textiles, they have always been more than mere utility. Across cultures and eras, dress has signalled identity, status, aesthetic sensibility, affiliation, ritual, even resistance. From the court robes of ancient Egypt, to the weaving traditions of the Vikings and the draped garments of classical Greece, elites often used textiles and embellishment as signifiers of power, spirituality, and aesthetic order. Even among the less privileged, people made choices, about cut, colour, ornamentation, silhouette, repair, decoration, distinguishing one’s self, group, or locality.
In that sense, fashion is fundamentally a form of cultural expression, not just consumption. It is an interplay of symbolism, craft, material, social norms, and creativity. The industrial, growth-driven model is in many ways a distortion of that prior logic, compressing creativity into mass formulas for scale.
Fashion and textiles have never been neutral goods; they have always carried stories of empire, wealth, and inequality. A striking example comes from the ancient world. Cleopatra Selene II, the daughter of Cleopatra VII of Egypt and Mark Antony, married Juba II, king of Mauretania, in the early Augustan age. Together they transformed their kingdom into one of the wealthiest regions in North Africa, largely through the trade of luxury products, especially Tyrian purple, a dye extracted from sea snails and coveted across the Mediterranean for its rarity and imperial associations. Alongside purple textiles, Mauretania prospered from trade in pearls, fish, figs and other goods, weaving itself into the economic and cultural circuits of the Roman Empire.
This episode shows how textiles and dyes were not simply commodities but engines of wealth, political power and cultural influence. The demand for colour, cloth, and adornment spanned continents, creating trade routes that linked the Mediterranean to Africa, Asia, and beyond. At the same time, these systems often relied on forms of coercion, tribute, and exploitation, dynamics that foreshadowed later colonial economies. The story of Cleopatra Selene and Juba II reminds us that fashion has always been global, bound up with empire and status, and capable of reshaping entire economies.
The shift: democratisation, industrialisation and fast fashion
One of the major transformations in modern fashion has been its partial democratisation: clothing became more affordable, more accessible, and more responsive to (and driving) mass consumer demand. In many ways that was a social progress: growing middle classes, social welfare states, and rising living standards meant that many more people could express themselves through dress, rather than being limited to rags or hand-me-downs.
In Sweden, for example, the expansion of welfare and redistribution in the postwar decades allowed broader segments of society to participate in consumption in new ways. At the same time emerged new business models like H&M, which began in Västerås, Sweden, and then expanded into mass fashion.
H&M’s model involved large volumes, low margins, rapid turnover, outsourcing of production to lower-cost countries, and tight control of supply chain cost and logistics. Over time, fast fashion expanded: previously, clothing lines were seasonal (2–4 per year), but fast fashion companies introduced micro-trends, many collections per year, and very short lead times. (britannica.com)
This shift also brought dislocation: traditional textile and garment workshops in Europe, crafts, small factories, local weavers, and local tailors found themselves unable to compete with the scale, automation, and wage arbitrage of global supply chains (and many demonstrated that to remain their factories). In Sweden itself, textile and garment manufacturing, which had roots going back to the 19th century, saw a decline in the face of cheaper imports.
Global supply chains concentrated garment production in the Global South (China, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Cambodia, etc.), where wages, oversight, and regulation could be weak. The top brands enjoyed outsized profits while many of those in the supply chains endured harsh conditions. The fast fashion logic is: more volume, faster turnover, tighter margins, constant novelty, everything geared toward growth as the metric of success.
In China, many cities specialise in particular garment niches. For example, some textile clusters are tightly focused on specific products or operations (denim, knitwear, accessories), which further intensifies specialisation and lock-in to scale. (This is widely documented in industry analyses of Chinese garment industrial zones.)
Thus, the dominant model of fashion has become growth-driven, but at great cost.
The hidden costs: social, environmental, cultural
Environmental and resource costs
Fast fashion’s costs are immense. The fashion industry is the second-largest consumer of water globally and is responsible for around 10 % of global carbon emissions (some estimates), exceeding emissions from international flights and shipping. (earth.org) Textile dyeing is one of the largest sources of water pollution, often dumping toxic effluents into rivers in production regions. (earth.org)
Overproduction is endemic: huge volumes of clothing end up unsold, in landfill or incinerated, or undervalued in secondary markets. The reliance on synthetic fibres (polyester, nylon), derived from fossil fuels, further entangles fashion with carbon lock-in and microplastic pollution. (fashionunited.com)
Fashion’s carbon, waste, chemical, and water burdens are largely driven by growth logic: more styles, more volume, shorter use lives.
Social and labour costs
To sustain ultra-low prices and high turnover, many fast fashion operations rely on low wages, subcontracting, precarious work, weak labour rights and inspection, and unsafe conditions. (studentbriefs.law.gwu.edu) The Rana Plaza collapse in Bangladesh (2013), which killed over a thousand garment workers, is a grim emblem of the structural risk in the garment supply chain, a collapse borne by workers for the sake of cost and speed.
Even where brands claim improvements, many (or almost all) upstream suppliers still struggle to provide “living wages,” and small artisans or social enterprises often cannot compete with the economies of scale of mega-brands.
Cultural and craft costs
Less discussed is the cultural cost of the dominance of growth logic. Handcraft, local knowledge, slow making, repair skills, regional textile traditions, these often cannot compete on cost in a growth economy. Social enterprises and small artisans who produce high-quality, small-batch, locally meaningful design find it extremely difficult to survive in a market dominated by economies of scale. Their time, care and aesthetics rarely map onto the metrics investors demand for scale and return.
An upcycled jacket, made by a single artisan, might take five or more hours (or far more) to assemble, source and finish. Suppose in a market like Sweden that artisan needs to charge €100/hour to make their business viable, but the mass market cannot sustain that unit cost (the item would cost €500). Thus, such creative, small-scale endeavours often rely on extra income, or external support and frequently struggle or sooner or later close.
In other words, the post-growth models, repair, reuse, small-batch, community, circularity, are penalised in a growth-first economy.
Fashion as circular, artful, post-growth
While much of the industry is trapped in growth logic, there is a countercurrent of circular, craft, repair, reuse, rental and remix trajectories. These exemplify how fashion could be re-imagined beyond growth.
Circular business models (resale, repair, rental, remaking) decouple revenue from raw material use. The global market for circular fashion practices is estimated to be over USD 73 billion and could occupy up to 23 % of the global fashion market by 2030. (reconomy.com)
Investing in circular models is identified as a way to recover from shocks and build resilience. (content.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org)
Some investment funds are exploring “positive change” models, e.g., thrift/secondhand chains, enzyme technologies to reduce resource use, etc. (bailliegifford.com)
These models align better with a post-growth logic: moderate scale, longevity of garments, shared use, repairability, local value capture, and lower environmental impact.
If fashion returns to its roots, meaning, craft, expression, it becomes less about pushing new volumes and more about sustaining dialogue, identity, connection, material justice, and longevity.
In this sense, fashion can lead the transition toward a post-growth creative economy: it already combines culture, materials, aesthetics, craft, emotion and social meaning.
The institutional challenge: growth logic, finance, policy
However, transitioning from a growth imperative to a post-growth fashion sector is not simply a matter of consumer persuasion or niche innovation. The institutional fabric, finance, investment logic, regulation, taxation, public subsidy, infrastructure, is deeply calibrated to growth. Below are some of the major hurdles and interventions needed.
Finance and growth expectations
Small sustainable fashion enterprises often seek external investment (for branding, scaling, material development, digital infrastructure). But most investors expect high growth and high returns. That expectation is at odds with post-growth models that might aim for stable scale, local anchoring, reasonable margins, long-term ecological health, and modest returns.
Too often, social or circular fashion ventures are forced to grow beyond their sustainable niche, compromising values, scale limits, or entering riskier strategies to satisfy investor return expectations. Many such businesses never fully become self-sustaining in a traditional growth model (especially in early years) and are often dependent on grants, partner incomes, or cross-subsidy.
Even mid-size ethical brands sometimes take investment, but that tends to impose a growth imperative or pressure to expand in ways that compromise the small-scale, circular, or relational mission.
Fashion can be capital-intensive: supply chain, inventory, logistics, and material sourcing all require upfront investment. But if that investment is tied to compounding returns, interest rates above inflation, and external scale goals, it locks a company into growth logic rather than post-growth stability.
Policy instruments and regulation
To support post-growth fashion, we need structural interventions:
Lower or zero VAT on reused, repaired, recycled, remade clothing (to remove tax bias toward new production).
Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) regimes that internalise the environmental costs of disposal, encouraging durability and repair.
Taxing pollution and resource extraction, and channelling those funds to raise wages in textile supply chains, to support living wages and safer conditions.
Subsidies, grants, or basic-income support for artisans and social enterprises, especially in textile and clothing crafts.
Public procurement policies favouring circular, repairable, local production.
Support infrastructure: repair centres, material banks, reuse hubs, maker spaces.
Trade and procurement regulation: limiting imports tied to forced labour, punitive environmental externalities, or planned obsolescence.
Cultural recognition and heritage grants for textile traditions, craft education, apprenticeship systems.
These interventions shift the burden from individual consumers (who are often overburdened by ethical consumption demands) to systemic governance that rewards durability, equity, justice and circularity.
Public ownership, collaborative platforms, ecosystem support
Some of the technical and logistical burdens in circular fashion (collection, sorting, refurbishment, material recycling infrastructure) are better handled through public or cooperative ownership, not purely private profit maximisation. Co-ops, municipal reuse centres, social enterprises with public backing, these are better suited to bridge the gap between micro-scale artisan ventures and the infrastructure demands.
Ecosystem support also matters: incubators, network platforms, training, shared marketing, material supply consortia, collaborative logistics, all of which reduce the cost and risk for small players.
In short: the system must reward (or at least not penalise) post-growth fashion models. Otherwise, the dominant growth logic continues to overwhelm them despite their superior ecological/social value.
Why fashion matters as a leverage point
Fashion is not some niche sector; it is deeply woven into daily life, identity, culture, labour markets, global trade, ecosystems, consumer imaginaries. If we can bend the logic of fashion toward post-growth, three things follow:
Cultural legitimacy. Fashion is visible, expressive, aesthetic. A post-growth fashion paradigm carries images and narratives, it becomes part of how people imagine a non-extractive society.
Material footprint. Because fashion is resource-intensive (water, dyes, textile fibres, shipping, waste), reducing its growth-driven excess has real leverage on emissions, pollution, and waste.
Labour justice. Fashion’s supply chains are among the most labour-intensive and exploitative. Reorienting its logic opens pathways to living wages, dignity, shorter supply chains, local repair, and worker empowerment.
Economic rebalancing. Fashion is a space where local and small enterprises, artisan producers, social enterprises, microbusinesses can survive and matter, if the conditions are changed. That helps rebalance the economy away from concentration and monopolistic scale.
Thus, fashion is not a fringe candidate for post-growth; it is a critical front.
Challenges and tensions
Of course, several tensions must be confronted:
Necessity vs excess. We do need clothing (it is not optional). The challenge is distinguishing between what is necessary, meaningful, durable and what is superfluous, disposable, novelty-driven.
Economies of scale vs relational scale. Some scale is required to manage logistics, materials, distribution, marketing. The question is what kind of scale, cooperative, networked, modular, not relentless expansion.
Affordability and equity. Many people lack access to high-quality, repairable, circular clothing. The post-growth transition must not become elitist or inaccessible but inclusive and fair.
Material innovations. Some sustainable materials or recycling processes require investment, infrastructure, and research. The transition period will be difficult.
Market pushback and incumbents. Major brands (e.g. Inditex, H&M, Zara, Fast Retailing, etc.) are deeply embedded and wield power in fashion systems. (H&M, for instance, has long been among the big fast fashion players.)
Conclusion: reclaiming the future of fashion
The fashion industry is not just a realm of frivolity or vanity, it is a microcosm of the contradictions of growth: beauty and creativity on one hand, environmental destruction and social injustice on the other. But because fashion is partly about art, partly about craft, partly about identity, it contains within it a language of meaning that can help us imagine a different economy.
To move fashion fully into a post-growth paradigm requires coordinated change, policy, finance, infrastructure, culture, narratives, and above all, a shift in how we define success (not revenue growth, but longevity, relational value, ecological balance, social justice, cultural richness).
The small-scale, circular, repair-oriented, artisan and social enterprises we have encountered at A Sustainable Closet are precisely the kind of seedbed for that future. But they will not thrive unless the broader system changes: unless investment logic loosens its grip, unless regulation supports reuse over new production, unless public infrastructure helps manage the circular flows, and unless culture prizes longevity and meaning over novelty.
Fashion, in its truest form, as art, as story, as identity, as handmade craft, points the way toward a post-growth economy. The path is arduous, but the direction is alive in those small businesses, artisans, repairers, upcyclers, curators, and in the people who choose meaning over mass consumption.