Shoppers want clearer sustainable fashion labels and impact information

The biggest surprise in Paris Good Fashion’s latest consultation is not that shoppers care about sustainability. It is that they still do not know how to read it. Among 168,587 participants across France, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States, 43 percent said they wanted first to understand the environmental and social impacts of clothing, while 28 percent wanted greater transparency on the products themselves.

That is a market failure, not a messaging tweak. The consultation generated 1,680 proposals and more than 481,000 votes, and 915 of the 1,449 validated proposals cleared 70 percent support. The demand for information, transparency and education has jumped from 15 percent in Paris Good Fashion’s first consultation in 2020, a clear sign that years of sustainability talk have not turned into shopper fluency.

Isabelle Lefort, Paris Good Fashion’s cofounder and general delegate, said the same blunt answer came back everywhere: “We don’t understand sustainable fashion. We don’t know how to buy sustainable fashion.” Karine Viel, director of sustainable development at Galeries Lafayette, said the sector may have become too technical as certifications and sustainability labels multiplied in an effort to avoid greenwashing. That is where the commercial damage starts. If the language is muddy, trust erodes, purchase decisions stall and every vague claim looks easier to challenge.

The consultation also shows how far the vocabulary gap runs. Paris Good Fashion said decarbonization was absent from responses, while digital product passports were barely mentioned or poorly understood. Earlier in 2026, the association took the public consultation to New York, London and Milan for the first time, underlining that the problem is not uniquely French. The effort had backing from Galeries Lafayette, Etam Group, Eram Group, Karla Otto, Kiabi, Lacoste, Printemps, SMCP and Le Bon Marché Rive Gauche.

The policy pressure is moving in the same direction. The European Commission’s textiles strategy will introduce a Digital Product Passport and set design requirements for textiles that last longer, are easier to repair and can be recycled more cleanly. France says environmental labeling for clothing was scheduled to roll out in autumn 2025, with a simple, readable display of a garment’s environmental cost. Fashion is being pushed toward product-level truth, and shoppers are already asking for the same thing in plain language.