Endeavoring Policy for the Global Fashion Industry: Learnings from the New York State Fashion Act

The production and distribution of goods by the nearly $3T USD fashion industry is responsible for significant human and environmental destruction. The fashion industry has failed to meaningfully reduce known environmental and social issues under self-regulation. The fashion regulatory landscape is rapidly changing with the introduction of a deluge of new legislation and regulatory frameworks which seek to mitigate or manage known impacts. The Fashion Sustainability and Social Accountability Act, or the Fashion Act, was introduced in the United States in New York State in January 2022. A pioneering and wide-ranging piece of legislation, the Fashion Act is a useful case study for the unique regulatory dynamics of the largely unregulated fashion sector. In a sector without a foundational relationship to government, little established research on the subject, and few who have worked at the intersection of government and fashion, many fashion stakeholders do not know how to build necessary and useful policy infrastructure in service of a more sustainable and humane fashion industry. This case study leverages the lived experience of advancing the Fashion Act and aims to understand the opportunities and challenges to advance policy in the current fashion system. Implications focus on limiting factors which may inhibit the ability to effectively advance meaningful environmental and social policy interventions for the global fashion industry including gaps in knowledge, lack of infrastructure, lack of appreciation for politics, missing system stakeholders, and power dynamics present in the sector.