There’s a battle going to save the future, and soul, of fashion, as key industry defender, the European Fashion Alliance, underlined in a report issued Wednesday in Brussels.
 

The report, which concludes with a 10-point manifesto of recommendations, comes at a moment when the entire industry is grappling with vital issues like sustainability or circularity, as its inventive fashion brands face increasing competition from international fast fashion. And, in a year when the European Union has enacted tougher new legislation governing eco design and final use.
 
Entitled “The Status Report of European Fashion”, the report was unveiled at a policy major round table inside the European Parliament in Brussels. With a keynote speech by Jessika Roswall, the newly appointed EU Commissioner for Environment, Water Resilience and a Competitive Circular Economy.

“What’s fascinating about this industry is how (it) is reinventing itself for the future. A future where quality, creativity and sustainability align,” stressed Roswall, who just took up her new position on Friday, part of the second term European Commission led by Ursula Von der Leyen.
 
Before noting that the European clothing and textile industry generated €170 billion turnover last year. And then cautioning that each year Europe generates more than 12 million tons of textile waste, only 22% of which is separately collected, and just 8% reused.
 
Founded in 2022, the EFA was created to develop a unified approach to Brussels and major issues confronting fashion. Its members include the Fashion Council Germany; France’s Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode‘ Italy’s Camera Nazionale della Moda; the UK’s British Fashion Council, and groups from Austria, Ireland, Iceland, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Denmark, the Baltics and more. All told 29 fashion and luxury organizations committed to the EFA, representing 25 fashion industry associations from 23 countries, 10,000 SMEs and 11 fashion weeks.
 
Though even before the EFA report came out, Brussels has already been busy. This year marks the first time in which an EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive requires all quoted companies in Europe to file an annual report detailing their environmental and social practices. 
 
“All listed companies must file this year. It makes us all more professional,” said one round table participant Lieve Vermeire, sustainability officer of Van de Velde, a quoted Belgium lingerie company with revenues in excess of €200 million.
 
Though this being Europe, individual countries have also created specific national rules. As a result, Belgium exporters to France already pay a Producer Responsibility Tax, starting at 0.03 percentage and rising depending on the product. However, if a brand can prove its products are durable, it can get back 50% of that tax for what is termed Eco Modulation. Though Vermeire noted that when she calculated how much Van de Velde needed to spend Vermeire to do be accepted for Eco Modulation it was ten times as much as they might get back.
 
“The intention is good, but the effect not so much. It would be better to have European wide rules,” she lamented.
 
Another EU creation, the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR) entered into force in July 2024.  It covers rules on Digital Product Passports (DPPs), green public procurement and destruction of unsold products – a major live issue for runway brands. It also stipulates that it is forbidden to destroy unsold new clothes, and to recycle unsold inventory. The latter measure targets fast fashion, aiming to force the sector to produce less.
 
In an impassioned speech, the Camera’s president Carlo Capasa, trumpeted Italy as a unique country that creates more half the world’s supply of luxury goods. 

 
“We create dream and not needs. That’s what makes this industry unique. And the problem in Europe is fast fashion. Our goal is to create clothes that don’t go to landfills. If they do end up there after a year then the people who create them should pay for that!” insisted Capasa, underlining a common opinion among runway brands in Europe. And noting that Italian fashion and accessories employ 600,000 workers in 60,000 companies, “which we really respect.”
 
Joining him at the rostrum, Pascal Morand, executive director of France’s Fédération, called on the EU to support “creativity-driven fashion” citing the sector as a key element in what he called the New European Bauhaus, in a reference to the hugely influential pre-war design movement.
 
Morand also stressed that creating a truly consistent database will be vital in any policy, noting that the “weak granularity of the database obscures the diversity in fashion, penalizing high-quality products.”
 
EFA’s declared aim is to “empower a prosperous, sustainable and inclusive European fashion ecosystem.” Its long-term goal: to transform the industry and help the planet, by defining an ethical, social and sustainable code of conduct for its members, and the fashion sector as a whole.
 
In opening remarks, Scott Lipinski, Chairman EFA and CEO Fashion Council Germany, stressed that the organization was founded, “because we all asked ourselves, ‘who do we speak to and how?’ Since, we represent the creative side of the industry.”
 
Part of the answer was in the room, in the presence of Dr. Christian Ehler, MEP and coordinator for the EU’s Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE). An avuncular German politician from the European People’s Party, which includes Von der Leyen, Ehler is very much fashion’s point man in Brussels.

“Ten years ago, we started to listen to fashion. I learned that I had to lose weight and get a better suit,” he joked, before adding: “What we learned was that we admire what you can do. Today, fashion is in the middle of a painful transformation process. But in order to create a new utopia, you cannot drive society and convince the new generation with visions of dystopia. That’s another reason we speak to you – you can transform dreams,” explained Ehler.
 
The EU has certainly begun to put its money where its mouth is, creating funds worth €2.3 billion for areas like new material development, textile innovation and recycling. Though, so far, precious little has reached creative talent, something which EFA wants to change. By way of comparison, the 2024 budget for EU was €189.4 billion in commitments and €142.6 billion in payments.
 
The EFA report does, in part, project an adverse view of fashion, according to EFA board member Elke Timmerman.
 
“We found that 67% of people have a negative opinion of fashion,” shrugged Timmerman, as she projected slides that also revealed their key concerns were the industry’s deleterious environmental impact, overproduction and negative social effects. However, the report also revealed that 88% of fashion firms had committed financial or human resources to sustainability.
 
Presented inside a conference room underneath the parliament, the morning boasted two round tables, the first on Fashion Industry: Challenges and Needs, which was hosted by the French Fédération’s Salomé Roch and featured five women speakers. One area where there was noted agreement as in the emotional power of fashion.

 
“Fashion is not just an object but something that represents feelings, a lesson in intangible values,” opined Costanza Maramotti, Max Mara board member, and granddaughter of its founder. 
 
“Many women recall that the first Max Mara coat they bought became a treasure. Others that they had received theirs from their mothers. That durability is vital. And it’s vital to maintain our artisanal skills and keep our European heritage,” Maramotti added.
 
The EU has also set aside funds to aid the development of new materials, though using them – or finding them- was sometimes easier said than done.
 
“Yes, there are new materials, but some of our products have 50 components, so that means 50 suppliers, and yes some can provide an eco-solution but often with not enough quality or good design. To us, quality, quality and quality is vital. Our first job is making sure that quality Van de Velde creations last a long time,” stressed Vermeire. 
 
In a second round table on opportunities and solutions, McKinsey’s associate partner Nikolai Langguth argued that the problem with new materials, is that they were not easily available.
 
“We talk about new materials, but the supply is not really there. However, when it comes to emissions, new dyeing technologies and energy sources are relatively inexpensive,”  explained Langguth, before cautioning how incredibly fragmented is the fashion industry.
 
“In the car industry, the top 10 companies represent 90% of production. In fashion, the top 100 represent just 20%,” he sniffed.
 
All sides agreed that talking to consumers is essential, and Ehler stressed how advanced labels were an ideal connection, made simpler by the legislations of DPPs.
 
“They unlock the opportunity to inform consumers and open up more circularity,” insisted Michele Casucci, founder of
Certilogo, which works with 80 brands who have developed over a million products with Certilogo smart labels.
 
Concluding a busy morning, Ehler too pains to stress: “What we need now is a precise catalogue of proposals. We are pumping money into the textile industry, via structural funds and regional funds , as we want to keep that in Europe.”