Every few years, the fashion industry experiences the same scandal. Journalists find burned bags, slashed jackets, or torn sneakers; the public is outraged; the brand promises to improve – but after a while, the story repeats under a different logo. This 'self-vandalism' has a perfectly rational explanation – which, however, does not absolve the brand of responsibility. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing Kursiv Media.

This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing Kursiv Media.

In July 2018, British fashion house Burberry reported in its annual report that it had physically destroyed its own goods worth a total of £28.6 million (about $35.6 million) during the period. This referred to unsold clothing, accessories, and perfume.

The wording in the report – 'cost of finished goods physically destroyed during the year' – remained a standard line in accounting documents for years until journalists noticed it. They discovered that this is common practice in the industry: burning unsold leftovers and even unused rolls of fabric has for decades been considered a perfectly working way to prevent items from reaching the gray market at reduced prices.

Public reaction was so sharp – the hashtag #Burnberry (from English 'burn') took hold on social media – that by September 2018, the company announced it would stop destroying unsold goods.

Swiss holding company Richemont, which owns Cartier, Montblanc, and Piaget, also engaged in liquidating leftovers: in the same 2018, it emerged that over two years, the company had bought back from its retailers and destroyed watches worth about $585 million (£437 million). The reason was directly opposite to mass retail logic: an excess of unsold watches in Hong Kong and mainland China posed a threat to the brand of entering the 'gray market,' where luxury watch prices drop significantly, along with the brand's status.

Richemont CFO Burkhard Grund explained the decision very clearly and honestly: the presence of the company's inventory on the gray market does not, so to speak, work for the 'long-term value' of the brand, so it was decided to buy back the stock. Part of the repurchased watches are redistributed to other regions; the rest are disassembled and materials recycled.

If Burberry and Richemont disclosed their practices themselves – in reports and press comments – the Coach story was discovered by chance. In October 2021, New York activist Anna Sacks (on TikTok @thetrashwalker) posted a video showing Coach bags with clear signs of intentional cuts, bought from another user who had found them... in trash bins. According to her, employees were required to cut unsold goods and then write them off as accidentally damaged – written-off goods allow tax returns.

Media reported that the video garnered over 2.4 million views in a few days. Coach denied tax fraud allegations but confirmed the fact of destroying goods – with the caveat that it concerns only damaged, defective, or unsellable items, comprising less than 1% of global sales. Just a few days after the publication, Coach also announced it would stop destroying returns in stores.

Nike's story was mirror-like: the company publicly claimed it turns old shoes into Nike Grind material for basketball court surfaces and new model soles. In 2021, German journalists tested this claim using GPS trackers sewn into unworn sneakers. According to a report by NRD, Die Zeit, and research startup Flip, the trackers led them to a factory in Herentals, Belgium, where, journalists alleged, not only genuinely worn shoes were shredded, but also completely new pairs without a single scratch, returned by customers for various reasons.

Nike explained the incident by saying that shoes with embedded trackers were considered opened and therefore unsafe for resale. But the investigation raised a broader question: such practice, according to journalists, may violate German waste management law, which requires first exhausting possibilities for reuse and only then recycling.

All these stories have not only reputational but also legal consequences. In 2020, France adopted the Anti-Waste and Circular Economy Law (AGEC), which, as the world's first, banned the destruction of unsold non-food items from 2022 – companies must now donate them for reuse, recycling, or charity.

To justify the need for this law, data were cited: in France, unsold goods worth about €630 million were destroyed annually – and destruction generates 5–20 times more greenhouse gas emissions than reusing the same item.

The law set a precedent: a similar ban on destroying unsold clothing and footwear was later adopted at the EU level. The practice that began as a 'trade secret' of individual fashion houses is gradually becoming a subject of state regulation – with accompanying fines and mandatory reporting.

These stories also have a reverse version – when the decision to destroy luxury items was made not by the brand, but by their owner. In 2018, amid the scandal over Dolce & Gabbana's advertising campaign in China (where a Chinese model tried to eat Italian pasta with traditional chopsticks), Shanghai writer and director Xiang Kai publicly burned his own collection of the brand's items worth over $20,000 in protest, and wrote under a photo of his action on social media that he was ready to 'lose this money for the dignity of the nation.'

That is, while in the cases of Burberry, Richemont, Coach, and Nike, goods were destroyed to protect the brand, here, conversely, destroying an item is an act of rejecting the brand. But the 'method' chosen is the same: let it burn...