Repair and restore: The pushback against throwaway culture

Consumers are increasingly pushing back against throwaway culture, and retailers, regulators and the resale economy are responding with a new model built around longevity, repairability and recognising the value of what already exists.

For decades, throwaway culture has been the default way of doing business in retail. Products were expected to fail and be discarded before being replaced by a new version. That familiar model is now facing growing pressure from shifting consumer values and a rapidly rising secondhand economy that is quickly becoming mainstream – as well as translating into legislation.

France is leading the charge here when it comes to regulation. In laws first introduced in 2015 and bolstered substantially in 2026, France became the first country to criminalise planned obsolescence – the deliberate act of shortening a product’s lifespan to force consumers to replace it. That foundation has since been built upon significantly. Across the country, manufacturers of smartphones, laptops, televisions, lawnmowers and washing machines are now required to display a repairability index, scoring products from 1 to 10 based on ease of disassembly, availability of spare parts and access to technical documents.

The framework has since been upgraded: a new durability index, which covers reliability and resistance to wear, as well as aiming to prevent software obsolescence, is now being rolled out, applicable to washing machines and televisions from 2025. Other countries in the EU have since followed France’s lead, and in June 2024 the EU Directive on Common Rules Promoting Goods Repair was adopted, with member states required to implement it by July 2026.

The retail market is registering this shift in its most fundamental measure: who is selling the most. In the first quarter of 2025, secondhand marketplace Vinted became the biggest seller of clothing in France by volume, ahead of Amazon and Kiabi. The finding came from a consumer survey by the Institut Français de la Mode (IFM), covering both online and offline retailers. The IFM report also showed resale fashion now accounts for 11.8% of all clothing sales in France, rising to 17.5% among Gen Z shoppers (the number is far lower among over 55s at just 3.7%).

Retailers are finding new opportunities as consumer habits shift. Every secondhand transaction on a third-party platform is a missed opportunity to capture revenue, retain a customer and extend a product’s lifecycle. In response, more retailers are beginning to provide these services in-house. Patagonia’s Worn Wear programme has been running successfully for many years – offering in-store repairs, free patch kits, trade-in credit, and a library of self-repair tutorials – and has become the benchmark for what repair-as-retail can look like. The company’s repair team in Reno handles complex cases, while store staff are trained to conduct minor repairs or guide customers through fixes themselves. Keeping in touch with its most loyal customers, Patagonia is running a travelling repair workshop which is touring popular rock climbing destinations, offering free repairs on a first come first served basis in mountain towns in the UK and Europe.

In this model, repair is a major driver of loyalty rather than an extra cost and other retailers are following suit. M&S announced a partnership with clothing repair and alterations platform Sojo in 2024, signalling that mainstream retailers are beginning to recognise the same logic. Meanwhile, according to Deloitte’s 2024 Sustainable Consumer report, 56% of consumers have repaired items instead of replacing them in the past year. Launched in February 2026, Levi’s Wear Longer Project is an initiative designed to teach the next generation of consumers the skills needed to fix their clothes, a programme created in direct response to research that found a third of Gen Z were interested in learning these skills. Meanwhile, sustainable sneaker brand Veja opened its L’École de la Réparation in Roubaix, northern France in November 2025, offering 20 students 10 months of paid intensive training in design, cobblery and textile repair. It’s not just clothes that people are interested in fixing, iFixit’s FixBot is an AI-powered chatbot trained on technical guides and repair documents that gives consumers easy to follow instructions for how to repair all kinds of electronics, from smartphones to ice makers.

Companies are creating products with repair and longevity baked in from the start. Based in the Netherlands, Fairbuds makes noise cancelling headphones that can be easily taken apart in order to replace broken parts as needed. Similarly, Kibu’s modular headphones look to normalise this approach for the youngest generation, with modular headphones designed to be assembled, personalised and repaired by children.

The emerging pushback against throwaway culture gives retailers an opportunity to renegotiate their relationship with consumers. Products that come with the promise of longevity also come with an increased possibility to build a lasting customer relationship, whether it’s maintenance, repair or the option to resell. Retailers that can effectively build that infrastructure now can not only reduce waste, but build loyalty and redefine what it means to actually buy something in the first place.