A video showing heaps of clothes piled up on roads is being shared on social media with a claim that it shows the ‘Zara’ clothes thrown away by Americans in support of Gaza. It is claimed that this happened after Zara allegedly made a disrespectful advertisement about the Gaza conflict. Let’s fact-check this claim through this article.
Claim: The video shows clothes of the Zara brand lying in front of a Zara store after Americans discarded them in support of Gaza.
Fact: This video is unrelated to the ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict. On 16 November 2023, the fashion resale platform ‘Vestiaire Collective’ launched a Fast Fashion ban campaign that banned fashion brands like Zara, H&M, Gap, etc. ‘Vestiaire Collective’ uploaded this video on their instagram page on 16 November 2023, making this announcement. Hence, the claim made in the viral post is False.
Upon closely observing the viral video, one can see certain text displayed on the screens installed on the buildings seen in the video. The text written on two of those screens is “What if fast fashion waste was on your doorstep? Vestiaire Collective.” Taking this as a hint, Factly performed a keyword search on the internet, leading us to the original version of the viral video uploaded on the Instagram page of the fashion resale website ‘Vestiaire Collective.’
In this video, ‘Vestiaire Collective’ announced that they are banning fast fashion brands like Zara, H&M, Gap, Abercrombie & Fitch, Mango, Urban Outfitters, and Uniqlo. This was also widely reported (here and here)
Last year, Vestiaire Collective banned fast fashion from their platform, citing pollution caused by fashion waste as the reason(here and here).
“Vestiaire said it would have been hypocritical to continue offering fast fashion on the platform when it’s no secret that the global fashion industry is one of the world’s biggest polluters while denying workers a living wage,” Forbes reported in November 2022.
Now, ‘Vestiaire Collective’ has extended this ban to another 30 fast fashion brands. Their announcement was made through a video, which is viral with a false claim that Americans are discarding their Zara clothes in support of Gaza.
To sum up, an unrelated video of a fashion resale website is being shared as visuals of Americans throwing away Zara clothes in support of Gaza.
