Last month, Australian fashion icon Witchery donated $447,000 worth of excess stock to charity partner Fitted for Work – the largest single donation the business has made.
Fitted for Work is a charity which aims to deliver clothing to people in need, and helps women experiencing disadvantages to “get work, keep work, and strive at work”.
The donation was made up of over 14,000 items, which will go toward around 980 women across Australia to help them get back in the job market. The clothes can also be resold at Fitted for Work’s ‘Conscious Closet’ retail store in Melbourne, which rehomed 22,000 kilograms of unwanted clothing in 2022.
The partnership, which has been ongoing since 2021, is a natural fit for Witchery, according to head of marketing Jennifer Petropoulos.
“We are a brand that is collaborative and welcoming, and ultimately, we want our customers to feel unstoppable in all aspects of life,” Petropoulos told Inside Retail.
“Partnering with a charity like Fitted for Work gives us the opportunity to support women who are dealing with personal struggles, so that they feel safe and confident when re-entering the workforce.”
Petropoulos estimates that Witchery has donated around 35,000 pieces of clothing to Fitted for Work over the last three years, amounting to around $600,000 worth of goods.
Often, the women receiving help from Fitted for Work are coming from physically or financially abusive relationships, and are attempting to reenter the workforce in a tough situation. The charity said it focuses specifically on employment because work provides economic security, independence, purpose, and connection for women escaping such difficult circumstances.
Helping these women is a central piece of the partnership, according to Petropoulos, but it started as a way for Witchery to test the waters of circular fashion.
“We were considering how we could play a bigger role in the fashion circularity space by making a positive impact in donating our aged stock, as well as providing our customers an avenue to donate their pre-loved garments,” Petropoulos said.
Initially, the partnership took the form of a customer-facing initiative, wherein customers could donate their worn Witchery garments for a $10 gift voucher. These collected garments were then donated to Fitted for Work. This initiative, while successful, was shelved during the Covid-19 pandemic as stores shut down.
Now, however, the partnership takes the form of a bi-annual aged stock donation at the end of each season, which ensures that Fitted for Work’s clothing stores are replenished.
Seamless sustainability
The partnership pulls double duty, helping Witchery shore up its efforts in the sustainable fashion space, while also serving Fitted for Work’s main goal of providing stable employment.
For Witchery, it’s an important step in solving fashion’s main environmental issues: namely, overproduction and unsustainable disposal of goods. By giving these garments a second life, Witchery is ensuring it doesn’t contribute to the 13 million tonne carbon footprint the fashion industry creates each year.
However, there is pressure, both within and outside the industry, for clothing manufacturers to adopt a more circular approach from the beginning of a product’s lifecycle – from initial design, through to disposal.
The Australian Fashion Council has developed its national clothing product stewardship scheme, Seamless, in order to help guide the industry toward a more sustainable future. The scheme is paid for by the brands involved, at a cost of four cents per item manufactured.
“Seamless sets out to bring all the parts of the clothing value chain together in a cohesive and coordinated way, [and guide] the fashion industry on its journey towards clothing circularity,” Naja Hibri said.
“[It] recognises that brands are responsible for garments’ entire lifecycle, from design to end-of-life, and will therefore be funded by [those] brands on each item of new clothing that they place on the market.”
Witchery’s owner, Country Road Group, is a founding member of the Seamless scheme.
Persistent gap
Beyond sustainability, Witchery and Fitted for Work’s partnership aims to tackle the ‘persistent gap’ in labour participation rates between men and women.
A key issue is that women are underutilised and underrepresented in full-time employment, instead making up the majority of part-time and casual employees, according to women’s business group Chief Executive Women.
Another is that domestic duties still largely fall on female family members. Between parents with a child aged up to five years of age, only 64 per cent of women held a job, compared to 95 per cent of men.
But, progress appears to be occurring, with these stats improving over time: The Australian Bureau of Statistics found that women’s full-time workforce participation hit a record high of 62.5 per cent in March.
Even when women enter the workforce, however, they’re still largely paid less than their male counterparts, and will continue to be paid less for some time.
A recent analysis by Guardian Australia found that, while the pay gap is closing, it is closing so slowly that most people working today will be “long retired by the time the gap is closed”.
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