The EU's new ban on destroying excess stock is a decisive step. But fashion's real opportunity lies beyond this decision. TWOTHIRDS has a ready-made antidote to fashion overproduction - we have been a Pre-Order clothing brand since 2017.
This week, the EU's ban on destroying unsold apparel, accessories and footwear came into force for large companies.
The Financial Times has rightly highlighted the pressure this creates for luxury brands, whose business models have often depended on protecting scarcity and price. Meanwhile, reporting from Yahoo News brings the scale of the issue into focus: an estimated 4–9% of unsold textiles in Europe are destroyed before they are ever worn, generating around 5.6 million tonnes of CO₂ emissions each year.
These are striking numbers but they also point to a much larger question. What if fashion did not wait until the end of a garment's journey to address waste?
For too long, unsold stock has been treated as an inconvenient afterthought. Products are made in large volumes, shipped around the world and, when demand does not materialise as forecast, marked down, stored away or destroyed. The loss is framed as the cost of doing business.
But every unsold garment represents resources, energy, materials and human work. Destroying it does not preserve value. It erases it.
The EU's new rules make an important principle clear: products should not be designed for disposal before they have even been used. The legislation also encourages brands to pursue alternatives such as resale, repair, donation and reuse which are important parts of a more circular future.
Yet a ban on destruction, while necessary, is not the same as a solution. It addresses the final symptom of a system built around overproduction.
At TWOTHIRDS, we have always believed the more meaningful question is not, "What should happen to clothes we can’t sell?" It is, "Why were they made in the first place?"
That question is why Pre-Order sits at the heart of how we work. Rather than guessing demand months in advance and producing vast quantities accordingly, we make many of our pieces once we know they are wanted. It asks for a little more patience, but it allows us to produce with far greater intention, reduce unnecessary stock and work closely with the people who make our clothes in Europe.
Another important aspect of our eco-design process that often gets overlooked, is that our design team creates timeless styles that ignore fashion trends, meaning that even if a piece doesn't sell this year, it can still be sold next year and fit perfectly into any outfit or wardrobe.
This is not about claiming perfection. Clothing still has an impact, and there is always more work to do across materials, durability, repair and circularity. But avoiding waste at the beginning is always more powerful than managing it at the end.
Luxury's concern about scarcity reveals something important. Scarcity has often been manufactured through overproduction: make more than the market needs, then control what remains. But there is another kind of scarcity, one rooted in care: making fewer things, making them well, and making them for people who truly intend to wear them.
That is a scarcity worth protecting.
The EU has drawn a line under one of the industry's most wasteful habits. Now comes the more interesting work: building a fashion culture where excess stock is no longer normal in the first place.
At TWOTHIRDS, that is the slow revolution we continue to believe in.
Further reading: Financial Times: "Luxury groups face inventory squeeze under EU destruction ban" and Yahoo News: "EU ban on destroying unsold clothes".