It was back in 2015 that our founder, Lutz Schwenke, decided to buck the sustainable fashion trend and pioneer PRE-ORDER. He and his TWOTHIRDS crew asked their loyal band of slow fashion followers to order their eco clothing in advance, so that the company could plan their operations more efficiently, thus cutting overproduction to practically zero. Knowledgeable as our community is about the damaging environmental effects of overproduction, our followers flocked to use PRE-ORDER, happy to wait a while so long as their sustainable shirt or eco-friendly jacket cared as much as possible for the ocean.
Fast forward to the present day and we have tweaked and perfected PRE-ORDER to make it more efficient than ever before. While the system hasn’t caught on among the fast fashion crowd as much as sustainability experts would have hoped, there are other eco-friendly clothing brands that have stepped up and adopted either the same system or something close to it. Here are just some of the sustainable clothing brands that offer pre-order fashion, in a bid to snuff out fast fashion and overconsumption once and for all.
Alohas - Pre-Order Shoes
Here at TWOTHIRDS we like to limit the number of collections we launch each year, so that our PRE-ORDER system can fully work its magic. Alohas take something of a different approach, releasing new collections of eco footwear, sustainable dresses and sustainable trousers every single week of the year (every Thursday to be precise). Each new item is then put on pre-order for a period of three weeks before going “On-Demand”, although pre-order items are often also advertised as being On-Demand which can get a little confusing.
The catch at Alohas is that the longer a customer waits to buy sustainable pants or an ethical dress, the more expensive it will become. This incentivises customers to purchase new styles as soon as they are released, enabling Alohas to better plan how to fulfil orders.
Vasquiat/Farfetch - Pre-Order Online Marketplaces
There simply are not that many sustainable fashion brands out there that operate in-house pre-order clothing models, but there are plenty who like the idea of it. This is obvious when you see that many eco clothing brands, and not-so-eco clothing brands, operate in conjunction with online pre-order fashion marketplaces such as Vasquiat and Farfetch.
We particularly like Vasquiat’s story because their journey began in Barcelona, a stone’s throw away from our very own TWOTHIRDS mothership. They attract slow fashion and luxury fashion fans by offering up a whole range of brand new sustainable pants or eco knits long before they are put on general release. Farfetch has a slightly more luxury lean, but operates in much the same way.
It would probably be fair in these cases to say that pre-order is being used more as a marketing tool to imbue products with a veneer of exclusivity, rather than delivering any sustainability benefits, but then again they do go to the effort of trying to highlight the eco pants and sustainable jackets created by independent artists and designers, which is to be commended.
Tropicfeel - Pre-Order Backpacks
This ethical clothing and travel accessories brand have grown in prominence in large part because of their beautiful eco backpacks. They come in all shapes and sizes and have so many handy pockets that even the pickiest of travellers will never go short on storage or thoughtful features.
In much the same way as Alohas, Tropicfeel use pre-order to incentivise their customers to place orders as quickly as possible before 10% early bird discounts fade away. However, they also employ a fun feature on their product pages which resembles what you might find on a crowdfunding site: a pre-order bar indicating whether a proposed new sustainable jacket or eco-friendly t-shirt design has garnered enough pre-orders to justify going into production. This adds to the sensation that consumer choices have real-world implications, something that all sustainable clothing brands could learn from.
Nike - Pre-Order Only On Special Occasions
Having previously mentioned that pre-order fashion has not really hit the mainstream as much as slow fashion fans would have liked, some of the biggest apparel brands in the world are making baby steps in the right direction. Nike is one such example, putting some limited edition collections and special releases on pre-order.
Currently there’s no sign of Nike or any of the other major brands fully adopting the pre-order fashion model, but we have our fingers crossed that they will be inspired by the way we sell sustainable pants and eco-friendly knits, so as to curb overproduction in the fashion industry.