Blockchain In Fashion Supply Chains And The Fight Against Fast Fashion
These days, there is much more awareness and understanding around sustainability and, more specifically, the role that the fashion industry plays. We’ve all seen the stats about the amount of products that end up in landfills, as well as the amount of money lost via counterfeit products and much more.
Many consumers and fashion businesses alike are looking to take a stand against these issues by addressing the supply chain and offering verification for end users. In all of these, blockchain technology can prove to be a very valuable tool in the following ways:
The Use Of Blockchain By-products
Blockchain technology is valuable not just for itself but also for the products it creates, such as cryptos and NFTs. The former allows transactions to be carried out across various blockchain networks, and the latter can be a valuable source of product authentication. Businesses in the fashion space can therefore leverage blockchain by-products to facilitate various transactions. What’s more, there is a growing number of these products being released to the public through platforms such as launchpads.
Launchpad products are especially valuable because they are new to the industry, and many are created with the intention of facilitating supply chain management. On top of this, they can also prove to be worthwhile investments because, as the underlying blockchain protocols see more use in the fashion industry, the tokens themselves become more valuable. Fashion entrepreneurs and consumers alike can discover new tokens on launchpads on a myriad of platforms, including dedicated wallets with advanced features.
Verifying Clothing Origin
Never Miss a Retail Update!A major concern from many consumers is the ethical nature of the clothes production process and where exactly their clothing comes from. Many would like to know that their clothes were indeed made where the label says, and this was done under humane and ethical conditions. Because companies have been found to twist the truth regarding their supply chains, this trust has been eroded over time. The good news is that blockchain technology can come in handy by allowing users to track the supply chain process of whatever products they use. By scanning a barcode, for example, consumers can detect where the clothing was made and even where the source material was found. This sort of supply chain transparency has been used in the food industry before and thus can be applied to clothing as well. With that being done, consumer Trust can be rebuilt over time.
Combating Counterfeits
Another issue clothing consumers often deal with is counterfeit clothing, which is a billion-dollar business at this point. Many want to know that the clothes they buy, often for high prices, are indeed legitimate, and this is where blockchain can come in. Clothing designers can put scannable barcodes that would authenticate the legitimacy of the clothing and question and reassure buyers that they have gotten the real thing. In the past, counterfeiters have tried to replicate certificates of authenticity and other such markers, but the thing about blockchain technology is that it cannot be hacked or changed. That means that once a piece of clothing has been authenticated on a blockchain network, no one can change it. The Sacramento Kings have previously used such technology to confirm the authenticity of their sports merchandise, and moving forward, this can be expanded on.
Another application could be confirming one-of-a-kind clothing pieces, which often command a very high price. NFTs, by their very nature, cannot be duplicated, and the value of 1 NFT can hold for a long time. By attaching NFTs to clothing pieces, fashion houses can prove that certain pieces are one of one or as rare as the claim to be. This will help build customer trust and will benefit the brand in the long term.
Transfer Of Ownership
One way consumers have been advised to push back against fast fashion is by swapping clothing as opposed to buying new pieces. For years, physical items have had their ownership represented as tokens and sold to others. Using these existing systems, fashion buyers can exchange ownership of fashion pieces, especially very rare ones, with others and keep the overall ecosystem healthy. We’ve seen this in the past with high-fashion businesses creating digital twins for their limited-edition items, and this allows for them to be traded much more easily between buyers and different geographical locations before the complexities of transferring the physical item come in.
Confirming Labour Practices
One of the biggest and most enduring scandals within the fashion industry has been the labour systems used to produce clothing. It is not unheard of for businesses of all levels to use sweatshop labour, and this casts a dark shadow over the industry. However, businesses that produce their clothing using ethical labour practices can confirm this to consumers using blockchain.
Public records of the factories where the clothing was created, the wages paid to employees, and so on can be made accessible via blockchain. This means that by accessing the blockchain records of a piece of clothing or a business, consumers can rest assured that proper labour practices have been used, and thus, they may patronize such businesses without any guilt. This level of transparency also creates an industry-wide expectation that can go a long way to combat the current issue.
Conclusion
The world of fashion is incredibly complex, and one of its longest-running issues has been supply chains, fast fashion, and so on. And while it seems that there is no end in sight to these issues, blockchain provides some level of solution. As we’ve noted in this article, the use of blockchain can help to track the life cycle and journey of fashion and apparel items. Using this, customers can be sure of the origins of the clothing they buy, the authenticity of the products they spend so much money on, and a positive impact on the environment around us.
