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Supporting ethical and domestic manufacturing boosts the availability of skilled jobs, indie labels and the wider economy How can a fashion brand do almost everything we say we want, use recycled materials, repair clothes, take garments back and encourage us to buy less, and still fail? Last month Mud Jeans ran out of road. The Dutch circular denim pioneer was declared bankrupt after more than a decade spent proving circular fashion could be practical and desirable. That ambition was not enough to overcome the financial pressures it faced. Announcing the bankruptcy, chief executive and co-owner Dion Vijgeboom called it one of the hardest days in Mud Jeans’ history. “We believed there was a way forward but, despite all our efforts, the financial burden of historic debt ultimately proved too great to overcome.” Just three months earlier, Everlane, the American brand built around “radical transparency”, agreed to sell a majority stake to Shein. The reported $100 million deal followed attempts to address approximately $90m of debt. That a brand built by challenging conventional fashion should find its future in the hands of an ultra-fast-fashion giant is more than an uncomfortable contradiction. It is a sign of the times. Neither company struggled simply because it pursued a more sustainable model. Debt, stock, cash flow, growth decisions and changing tastes all matter. Good intentions alone cannot keep a business alive. Products must still be beautiful, relevant and commercially viable. However, neither should we pretend responsible brands compete on a level playing field. Responsible production costs more. Better materials, smaller runs, skilled labour and traceability all carry a price. Most importantly, so does paying people properly. Fast fashion can appear cheap partly because many of its true costs are pushed elsewhere, onto workers, communities and the planet. Then comes an uncomfortable contradiction. If a garment lasts for years and a company genuinely encourages customers to buy less, how does it deliver the relentless growth investors expect? Smaller brands spend more making each garment responsibly, while global competitors spend vastly more making sure their cheaper products are the ones we see. Price, fit and appearance still shape purchasing decisions, while greenwashing makes genuine responsibility difficult to distinguish from clever marketing. Sustainability cannot compensate for poor design. Responsible fashion must still be desirable fashion. Read more - DR ANTOINETTE FIONDA-DOUGLAS: Let's facts about the ugly side of beauty products - Dr Antoinette Fionda-Douglas: 'Cotton on to true value of Scottish local businesses' - Dr Antoinette Fionda-Douglas: Are microplastics in clothes killing us? - Dr Antoinette Fionda-Douglas: Why Scots must shop local this Christmas I know this tension personally. At Beira we use surplus luxury fabrics, produce in limited quantities and work with skilled artisans who are paid properly. These are choices I believe in, both as a founder and as someone who teaches sustainability. However, belief does not make them inexpensive. They raise our costs, limit volume and make rapid growth much harder. The challenge is larger than any one brand. Sustainable businesses need access to skills, factories and responsible production at a commercially viable scale. Sustaining that infrastructure requires dependable demand, and public procurement may be one of the most powerful levers we have. Public procurement is not a phrase that usually fills anyone with joy yet Andy Burnham’s announcement that British jobs and skills will be given far greater weight in government purchasing did exactly that for me. At its heart is a refreshingly simple question: will this public spending create good jobs in Britain? The timing is striking. Fashion Roundtable has spent a decade arguing procurement should support British manufacturing. On July 24, shortly after Burnham entered Downing Street, it published an open letter calling for public-sector textiles to be made in Britain. Just 11 days later his government announced reforms covering £90 billion of annual contracts. Had someone been listening? Either way, the direction of travel feels more hopeful. The reforms do not, however, guarantee a single NHS or defence uniform will be made here. Fashion Roundtable and more than 100 industry signatories want an onshoring requirement for public-sector textiles and a task force bringing procurement, skills and industrial policy together. Fashion and textiles contribute £62 billion to UK GDP and support 1.3 million jobs, yet the power of public procurement remains largely unrealised. Burnham has rejected a system based on “chasing cut-price deals around the world rather than helping our own British-based suppliers become more stable and competitive”. The question is whether that principle will reach the clothes worn by our nurses, carers, soldiers and other frontline workers. The label inside a uniform tells us where it was made but not the full cost of that choice. Overseas production may put a lower figure on a procurement spreadsheet but it does not count the British job never created, the apprentice never trained, the tax revenue lost or the supply chain weakened. Nor does it capture the environmental cost of long, opaque supply chains or the risk of depending on them for essential goods. UK Fashion and Textile Association chief executive Adam Mansell says: “Our campaign to change the rules on public procurement is an important step towards creating better awareness in Government of the many benefits of buying British.” This is not an argument for paying any price simply because something is made here. Onshoring is not automatically sustainable. Contracts must demand fair work, traceable materials, lower-carbon production and value beyond the initial purchase price. They must specify where goods are manufactured, not simply where the winning supplier is registered, and be structured so UK manufacturers can realistically compete. We do not have to imagine what this could mean for Scotland. According to the UK Covid-19 Inquiry’s 2026 procurement report, by April 2021 around 88% of Scotland’s PPE was being made domestically. The report cites Scottish Enterprise analysis estimating £102.7m spent with Scottish suppliers generated £66.7m in additional economic value, supported 1,400 jobs and delivered an eight-to-one multiplier in local spending. “When you buy British, the money doesn’t disappear offshore, it comes back through wages, tax and local spending,” says Kate Hills, founder of Make it British and a Fashion Roundtable board member. When the emergency ended, however, the contracts dried up. Suppliers who had invested, recruited and retooled were left without the demand needed to sustain that capacity. Scotland proved it could manufacture essential textiles, then allowed much of that capability to disappear again. Holyrood still has significant purchasing power across NHS Scotland, councils, schools and transport. If the Scottish Government is serious about building a greener and fairer economy, the clothes bought with public money should help build it. What sits behind that label reaches far beyond the factory door. A stronger domestic manufacturing base could make smaller production runs viable, shorten lead times and give independent brands access to more local, transparent production. Those brands create jobs, occupy premises and bring identity back to places hollowed out by homogenised retail. The thread runs from a uniform contract to a factory, to a skilled job, to an independent label and, ultimately, to a healthier high street. We have spent years mistaking the cheapest price for the best value. Mud Jeans shows what happens when we ask responsible businesses to transform fashion alone. Public procurement gives government the chance to do more than applaud change. It can help make that change commercially possible. Every uniform has a label. The real question is what sits behind it: the cheapest possible price today or skilled British jobs, ethical production and a more resilient economy tomorrow. Dr Antoinette Fionda-Douglas is co-founder of Beira, and assistant professor at Heriot-Watt University