New legislation from Paris takes direct aim at ultra-cheap fashion retailers, banning their ads and adding hefty eco-fees to curb waste.
France has become the first country to clamp down on the fashion industry’s environmental excesses. The Senate-backed measures ban advertising by rock-bottom-cost fashion platforms like Shein and Temu and will impose an “eco-contribution” of up to €10 per garment by 2030 on cheap clothes as a deterrent to throwaway culture.
The new law explicitly differentiates “ultra” fast fashion from more conventional retailers, imposing lighter obligations on European chains like Zara while zeroing in on high-volume online sellers. It forces fast-fashion companies to inform consumers about the environmental impact of their products and adds a €5-per-item environmental fee (doubling to €10 by 2030) on budget garments, capped at half the item’s price.
Shein and Temu are squarely in the crosshairs of the crackdown, facing new costs and a potential advertising blackout in France that could force them to rethink their ultra-cheap, high-turnover business model. Shein, for its part, has bristled at being singled out – the company insists it is “not a fast fashion company” and claims its model is “part of the solution, not the problem” – but its thousands of new styles churned out daily epitomize the disposable fashion culture France is targeting.
France’s fast-fashion crackdown could reverberate beyond its borders, with other governments and the EU already considering similar limits on cheap clothing and textile waste. By putting a price on rampant overproduction, the law signals that the era of consequence-free disposable clothing is nearing its end, putting pressure on brands to adopt sustainable practices as fashion’s environmental toll comes under unforgiving scrutiny.
