Handling the most sensitive material is of the utmost importance and carried out under immense security and scrutiny. ‘Anything with a magnetic strip, like all smart cards: a $10 or $15 card – that’s currency,’ our host explains. ‘When that card expires, with good technology you can read the black strip on the back and reverse-engineer to create cards.’ His company shreds items without discrimination: train cards and government secrets all face the same fate. ‘I’m bidding on a project for a military base where they’re developing 3D-printed prototypes of grenades. Now, what do you do with the prototype? It’s all 3D printing, so they’re safe to destroy – it’s a weird part of the business.’ And what does destroying plastic grenades have to do with fashion? Well, it seems that all man-made solids are fair game for disintegration, with the CEO admitting, ‘I just had this cashmere clothing pull of 8,000 items that had to be destroyed. The clothing industry is becoming more and more of a key part of my business.’ It would seem the high fashion industry requires the same discretion as military R&D.
The CEO’s company carries out a good share of the shredding for the luxury industry based in and around New York City. ‘Here are some depressing numbers for you,’ he confessed about a recent client, ‘we can shred 200 pounds of bags, 15 times an hour. That’s 3,000 pounds of leather and metal handbags in an hour.’ And those light-as-air silk blouses? ‘They needed to be destroyed because they were highly flammable; otherwise the company would have been fined heavily,’ explained our source. A legal liability. Under American law, the fashion house needed to provide a certificate of destruction proving the ‘dangerous’ garments in question were gone without a trace and wouldn’t make it onto the market.
Even more common than government intervention is when unsold or damaged garments are destroyed at the end of a season. The practice of burning or shredding clothing into fabric scraps destined for the landfill protects brands from criminals who scour dumpsters for untouched and intact dead inventory who then return their finds to stores for cash or store credit. Shredding clothing defends retailers against profit loss, but can also preserve a brand’s cache. Certain luxury brands, including labels in both the LVMH and Kering portfolios, Burberry, and Chanel have been wrought with rumours that they shred their products to retain exclusivity. If you can’t buy full price, don’t expect to shop it later from the bottom of the bargain bin. Similar in their resistance to the evolution of the retail landscape, many of these luxury brands retain apprehension about e-commerce and vehemently oppose discounts to move product off shelves and off racks. Rather than keeping unsold stock for a future sale, destroying product retains the brand’s elite image. ‘It should matter to a designer what happens to their items. Not only when they sell, but how they manage what isn’t sold,’ says our source.
It’s a mindset he takes to heart: ‘I want to tell you this story: I had the luxury of travelling to Thailand in 1991 when Bangkok was the theft capital of the world. I bought this drop-dead-gorgeous leather briefcase from an Italian manufacturer; the tag said “Made in Milan”. But no, it wasn’t. It was made in Bangkok. It cost me $40 for something that if I saw on Madison Avenue it would be at least $1,000.’ When one considers the inexplicable speed and precision at which manufacturers are now able to produce – and reproduce – designs shown on the major fashion runways, in many instances the ‘inspired by’ product lands on store shelves far faster than the original and at a huge price disparity. These low-end manufacturers cut corners, not only by using lower quality materials but by eliminating the need to invest time and money in genuine research and development. Counterfeit goods and cheap knock-offs are an enormous problem for the fashion industry.
‘Theft is easy. There are companies – in fashion, technology, every industry – that steal designs. They would say it’s all fair game, but when designers are creating clothing with a certain quality of material, a certain design, a certain stitch, a certain t – if something’s counterfeited, it ruins the value that designer put into it,’ he reflects. It’s why fashion’s innovators turns to shredding companies to protect their intellectual property. By destroying their product, they hope to fend off potential copycats stealing designs, which tend to be difficult to trademark or copyright. Empathising, the CEO vents his frustration: ‘When my kids were younger, they would download songs from Napster – it used to drive me nuts. They were stealing music! “Guys! Don’t steal!” I eventually told them, “If people stole from me, I couldn’t afford this house.”’ And it is the same approach with fashion. He maligns, ‘When someone steals something from you, how angry would you get? Like, “Fuck you! This is my value! This is my brains! This is my dream! This is my passion!” You just don’t think about it until it’s too late. We don’t think about it until we see someone stealing it. Then it’s gone.’ Moreover, if a fashion brand defines a product as seasonal or limited edition, they can control its lifecycle by shredding it – assured that it won’t be stolen, sent to China and reproduced ten-fold. Shredding has become yet another line of defence in the fight against the phenomenon of finding this or last season’s runway ‘look’ for sale on Canal Street.