ENDURE
ENDURE is a new clothing brand that reimagines the market for second hand clothing. It comprises a system of touchpoints designed to make previously worn garments desirable to new customers, with the potential to positively disruptive the global clothing industry and it current environmental and social shortcomings.
In the UK, clothes are worn on average seven times before they are thrown out, and there is only a 13% chance that they will be passed onto someone else in the UK to wear again. More likely your clothes will either end up in landfill, be incinerated, or shipped abroad to developing countries.
Clothes donated to charity in the UK have a 70% chance of being sent overseas rather than being sold here. Flooding developing markets with cheap clothing undermines local fabric and clothing industries, causing unemployment and stunting local economic growth and exports.
By increasing the perceived value of second-hand clothing, we estimate the flow of pre-used clothes has the potential to account for 80% of the total clothing market in UK.
Where second-hand clothing is often undermined by the retail atmosphere and experience, the ENDURE brand would elevate the perceived value of pre-worn garments, positioning its products alongside other premium high-street fashion brands such as Urban Outfitters and Uniqlo, rather than charity shops.
ENDURE borrows the principles of existing second-hand clothing shops, transforming them into a closed loop product-service system. The physical and online retail spaces are served by a convenient doorstep collection for unwanted clothes; for the consumer, these touch points are linked together using their ENDURE account and their social media channels, for browsing, shopping and arranging collections.
Project team: Ji-Young Lee, Lance Cheng, Yoonjung Choi, Becky Miller
Year: 2016