Thoughts on Sales and Slow Fashion

We have just extended our Flash Sale by another 10 days. Why? Can a sale be part of a sustainable surf bikini business? We would like to share a few thoughts about the sale and our approach to slow fashion.

Overproduction is one of the biggest problems in the fashion industry, with enormous effects not only, but especially, on our environment. The fast-fashion industry is worth $1.2 trillion, and the world consumes 80 billion garments every year. However, fashion consumption comes with enormous ecological, social, and human costs: up to 10% of global emissions are caused by the fashion industry each year.* According to experts, large companies in particular are guilty of producing excessively, while others have been working with a balanced ratio all along.**

Oy takes a different approach and sees size and growth as responsibilities that must be handled carefully. For us, time is a quality that we invest, on the one hand, in the development of our products and, on the other, in determining their lifespan. We create slow fashion — sustainable surf bikinis & activewear that not only holds up, but also lasts, for more than just one season.

Alongside quality, quantity is not only an economic question for us, but also an ecological one. Thanks to our 10 years of experience and the feedback from our customers, we can estimate how many products from a collection we are likely to sell. Within this framework, we minimise the risk of overproduction. Sometimes, however, a small amount of overproduction cannot be avoided. In that case, our second strategy comes into play: designing products that are not only in style for one season, but even for two or three seasons.

Because we know that our surf bikinis and other products are of such high quality in terms of both design and materials, we usually see no need to offer them at a reduced price. But at some point, only a few pieces remain available in a limited number of sizes and colours. These products tend to become slow sellers and take up space in our small warehouse. That is why we offer these items once or twice a year as part of an exclusive warehouse sale at special prices.

For us, a sale does not mean getting rid of old things or chasing quick money. Instead, it is another step towards a sustainable economy. According to our own standards at Oy, nothing in our warehouse is thrown away or declared waste: in the very rare case that we cannot sell an item, we recycle it together with defective or faulty items, fabric offcuts, old material samples, or unusable samples into hair ties.