Zara to launch ‘pre-owned’ platform for garment repairs and donations

The ‘Zara Pre-Owned’ service will launch on 3 November across the UK. The platform will be available in Zara stores, online and through the company’s dedicated mobile app.

Zara Pre-Owned offers consumers ways to fix or pass on garments. It will offer a repair system for all garments, which will allow customers to bring items in for services like button replacements and zipper and seam repairs.

The platform will also offer UK customers the chance to sell on older garments to other customers through a new secure initiative, or donate items, either in-store or via home collection. Online donations will go to the Red Cross.

The British Fashion Council is urging companies to go beyond setting headline sustainability targets to cut emissions and waste in-house, and reduce the number of garments they are producing. The number of garments, shoes and accessories made globally has grown exponentially with the rise of fast fashion, outpacing developments in resale and recycling technologies and infrastructure.

As such, Inditex, which owns Zara, is the latest to venture into a burgeoning resale market. According to ThredUp’s 2021 Resale Report, the global fashion resale market is set to double by 2025, reaching a value of $77bn. By 2030, that report stated, it could be worth $84bn, as the value of the traditional fast fashion sector hits $40bn.

Inditex owns a host of fashion brands and has online and physical stores in more than 200 markets, of which 60 in the UK are Zara. The company has committed to achieving climate neutrality by 2040.

Inditex is a member of the UN Fashion Charter, which launched in 2018 and has garnered the support of more than 50 businesses, including suppliers and logistics firms as well as designers and retailers. Other signatories of the Charter include H&M Group, Levi Strauss, Kering Group

The Charter is aligned with the aims of the Paris Agreement and sets a roadmap towards carbon neutrality by 2050 – the date by which the UN believes it is possible to fully decarbonise the global fashion sector.

The document outlines 16 key principles for signatories, including a clause requiring participating businesses to reduce their overall carbon footprint by 30% by 2030.

Signatories are also required to phase out high-climate impact raw materials from their products, packaging and supply chains, and to stop installing coal-fired boilers at supplier factories by 2025.

The company is also a member of the business-led coalition Textile Exchange. Its Challenge is aiming to ensure that more than half of the cotton produced globally is produced using sustainable methods by 2025. Supporters also include ASOS, Nike and Timberland.