In “Mom, I stopped the plane”, on LCP, Daphné Roulier looks at the failings of “fast fashion”

LCP – FRIDAY MARCH 10 AT 9:00 P.M. – MAGAZINE

“Mom, I stopped the plane”: the title of the new monthly magazine on ecological transition presented by Daphné Roulier is catchy – it is moreover the former presenter of LCI and Canal + who found it. But still ? On the form, the journalist conducts this meeting with conviction, which revolves around reports, interviews and chronicles by Raphaël Hitier, doctor in neuroscience and documentary filmmaker, and Camille Etienne, environmental activist.

Basically, while Fashion Week has come to an end (in Paris, Tuesday March 7), this first issue is devoted to “fast fashion”, a term which designates textile companies manufacturing in very large quantities and at low cost overconsumed clothes.

The “reminder of figures” is frightening: 100 billion pieces of clothing are sold each year in the world, up 60% in fifteen years, including 2 billion in France alone (some speak of 2.5 billion), which makes an industry more polluting than air and maritime transport combined.

The cause of this disaster is provided by an equally chilling report on the inauguration of the twenty-first French Primark store, in December 2022, near Angers. Hysterical customers, prices “twice as expensive as Zara or H&M”… As a result, a “mother of modest family” arrived with a budget of 100 euros comes out with 186 euros of purchases.

Relocation

From serious, the subject becomes delicate. Who hasn’t bought from Pimkie or Shein once? By targeting the customers of these brands, the program is aimed at viewers, who should not, however, be pointed. Also Daphné Roulier chose two guests experienced in the exercise: Bérangère Couillard, 36, former regional director of a ready-to-wear brand who became Secretary of State in charge of ecology, and Julia Faure, charismatic co-founder of the ethical clothing brand Loom.

Also listen How to dress without destroying the climate and biodiversity?

If the political world concedes that “the establishment of Primark is not good news”, he cannot go so far as to say that the sign should not be accepted – Raphaël Hitier does not hesitate to ask. When Daphné Roulier suggests penalizing polluting entrepreneurs, Bérangère Couillard prefers to reward virtuous companies.

Relocation makes everyone agree: repatriating production to France would reduce the CO bill₂ of the die in half. But the examples chosen – always the same – show that it is not so simple: Le Slip français, a company founded in 2011 by Guillaume Gibault, like Atelier Tuffery, the French jeans company based in Florac, in Lozère.

Julia Faure is also a regular on TV sets. Calm and remarkably intelligent, she notably links the recent closings at Kookaï, Camaïeu or Pimkie to the very model of “fast fashion”. But when she proposes an increase in ecotaxes to 5 euros per garment, the minister does not understand that this leads to no longer buying an item “at the average price of 12 euros” but to buy three times less and more expensive.

Whether “to dress is to pollute”recalls Julia Faure, it is indeed imperative to divide production by three by 2050. An attainable objective: according to a study for Marks & Spencer, “50% of clothes in wardrobes are put on less than once a year”underlines the co-founder of Loom, member of the En mode climat collective.