NIKIN launches campaign against fast fashion

NIKIN, the textiles company based in Lenzburg in the canton of Aargau, Switzerland, has launched a countermodel to popular Black Friday deals. According to a press release, the fashion label will buy back circular clothing over the next five years and give customers a discount of up to 25 percent of the purchase price, depending on how long the garments in questions have been worn. With this initiative, NIKIN is seeking to reduce the amount of clothing that consumers throw away. The company states that this problem is on the rise owing to a steady deterioration in the quality of textiles. It lays the blame for this squarely at the feet of the trend towards Fast Fashion pursued, for example, by the online Chinese platform Shein. According to estimates by Textilwirtschaft, in 2023, Shein’s total sales came in at 45 billion US dollars, with a rise to 63 billion US dollars projected for 2024, according to the NIKIN press release.

In contrast, NIKIN is aiming to extend the lifecycle of its products. “We believe in a business model that is not characterized by short-term profit, but rather by long-term responsibility. The Circular Cashback program is our way of setting an example within the fashion industry”, comments Nicholas Hänny, co-founder and CEO of NIKIN, in the press release.

NIKIN, founded in 2016 by Hänny and Robin Gnehm, is known for its tree planting campaign. For every product sold, NIKIN plants a tree in collaboration with its partner organization One Tree Planted. The company claims that more than 2.4 million trees have been planted worldwide to date. ce/ww