The Latest Sustainable Fashion News - October 2025

It’s been another month of major shifts in the sustainable fashion news space. From governments tightening loopholes to fungi replacing plastic, the future of fashion is being shaped by collaboration, science, and systems that finally reward responsibility over rhetoric.

The UK closes its fast fashion tax loophole

Big news for e-commerce giants. The UK has finally announced the closure of its 'low-value imports' tax loophole - the one that’s allowed brands like Shein and Temu to flood the market with ultra-cheap, untaxed clothing.

This loophole meant that parcels valued under £135 avoided import taxes entirely, giving low-cost overseas sellers a huge advantage over domestic retailers. The new rules will require all imported goods to be taxed equally, levelling the playing field for British businesses.

Essentially, the cost of throwaway fashion just became more expensive. The system has long been rigged to reward volume, and this mitigates the impacts of that volume. The government estimates it’s been losing hundreds of millions annually in unpaid VAT from these imports. By removing the loophole, it’s not only reclaiming revenue, but is likely to reframe how fast fashion shoppers view brands and purchases which aren't quite as cheap anymore.

This could also push fast fashion brands to rethink logistics, pricing, and transparency, and open doors for more responsible local and circular fashion businesses to compete.

Scientific breakthrough: can mushrooms replace plastic?

Scientists from the University of the Basque Country have developed a natural fungus that could replace plastics used to coat paper and textiles, making them water-resistant without synthetic polymers.

The fungus, Pleurotus ostreatus (aka oyster mushroom), can be turned into a biofilm that protects fabrics while remaining completely biodegradable. It’s edible, compostable, and low-cost, meaning it could replace the fossil-based coatings currently used in packaging, paper, and fashion products (think sweat-wicking gymwear, waterproof outerwear).

This is circular design in its purest form - material that can return safely to the earth. If scaled, fungal coatings could transform packaging waste systems and reduce reliance on microplastic-heavy synthetics. In the near future we could see raincoats, swing tags, and trainers with nature-based water resistance.

As with any new tech, the challenge is scaling. But if innovation funding and partnerships follow, fungi might just become fashion’s most unexpected new fabric friend.

Miami Fashion Week puts sustainability and fashion tech centre stage

Under its 2025 theme of 'Technology, Culture, and Conscious Creation' Miami Fashion Week wasn’t moved on from beach looks to centralising biotech, blockchain, and new creative infrastructure. The event was made up of digital fashion houses, AI-assisted design, and local circular brands redefining the city’s creative economy.

A strongly emerging theme we're seeing is that fashion tech and sustainability are no longer separate industries, they’re merging into one ecosystem. The future of responsible fashion will depend on how creatively brands use technology not as a marketing prop, but as a design tool for longevity, transparency, and access.

Twelve textile companies form Europe’s Circular Textile Coalition

Twelve major European textile manufacturers have come together to form the Circular Textile Coalition, a powerful new lobby group pushing for industrial-scale textile recycling systems across the continent.

Members include fabric tech leaders such as Lenzing, Indorama Ventures, and Renewcell, who are calling for EU-level infrastructure to handle textile-to-textile recycling, unify standards, and unlock funding for scaling circular fibres.

This coalition is significant because it shifts responsibility upstream: from brands to the suppliers who actually make the materials. It’s an open call for shared accountability, and it's another massive step in Europe moving towards circularity as standard practice, it's slowly become the first region where textile waste is treated as a renewable resource, as opposed to an inevitable byproduct.

Investment in Circular Fashion: BFC, UKRI and UKFT launch new report

The British Fashion Council, UK Research & Innovation, and the UK Fashion & Textile Association this month published a report mapping some exciting opportunities and success stories in circular fashion investment.

The findings show that brands integrating repair, rental, and resale into their models are outperforming peers on long-term resilience and customer retention. But access to finance remains a major barrier for SMEs, with most funding still flowing to short-term growth rather than long-term systems innovation.

The data shows where attention & investment, and there is no doubt that circularity is gaining economic traction. For fashion brands, the game is shifting from 'we hope to be circular' to 'we must design for circular from day one if we’re going to win'. The report calls for cross-sector collaboration between investors, policymakers, and creative entrepreneurs to close that gap, positioning circular fashion not as a moral choice, but as a commercial one.

The BCG & Vestiaire Collective Report on Resale's Booming Future

The global resale market is thriving. A newly published report from Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and Vestiaire Collective shows resale already accounts for around 28% of wardrobes of their survey base - and is growing at around 10% per year, which is three times faster than the new-goods market.

That growth looks to cultivate a resale market forecast to be valued at $320-360 billion (USD) by 2030. Motivations for people opting for resale are driven by affordability, variety and uniqueness.

Gen Z is leading the charge on resale, with second hand items making up around 32% of their wardrobes globally. What's essential in the luxury space, is that 70% of buyers say authentication is important - DPPs are an essential player in changing the game, yet 65% of respondents had never heard of DPPs. So, there's work to be done here.

Resale has moved forward from a fringe experiment to something operational, strategic and central to brand futures. For fashion brands, this means integrating resale is less risky than not. What's important is to build traceability and experience around pre-loved, use it as a recruitment channel (especially for younger audiences), and view DPPs and data as infrastructure, not add-ons.

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