#BehindtheCampaign: The Street Store’s Sustainable Disclaimer to fast fashion

An innovative response to the crisis of overconsumption in fashion, The Street Store’s Sustainable Disclaimer advertising campaign delivers a powerful message: Fast Fashion needs a disclaimer, and there’s something you can do about it.

9 Jul 2025

The Street Store’s Sustainable Disclaimer advertising campaign delivers a powerful message (Image supplied)

The Street Store has been growing globally for 11 years and has clothed more than a million people around the world.

Now it has hijacked a familiar media convention to land a powerful, resonant message with South African consumers.

Front page attention

“Advertisements about gambling and tobacco carry disclaimers, and so at The Street Store, we felt that fast fashion, too, needs a sustainable disclaimer,” says The Street Store’s patron, The Up&Up Group’s executive chairman, Mike Abel.

He says the addictive nature of fast fashion and the harm it causes to our planet deserve front-page attention.

“Last year, quoted by the BBC, Mark Griffiths, professor of behavioural addiction at Nottingham Trent University, UK, agreed with the description of fast fashion being as addictive as sugar.”

“As a society, we are becoming addicted to online shopping, addicted to buying things we don’t need.

“While there isn’t consensus on the fast-fashion giants causing literal addiction in the sense of hours-long, compulsive binges, it can push people over the limits of their disposable income, and that’s dangerous.

“That’s despite the immense, and proven, damage it is causing to the environment.

An action driver

The Street Store began as an idea 11 years ago in the hallways of The Up&Up Group’s integrated creative agency, M+C Saatchi Abel, as the world’s first open-source, pop-up, premises-free clothing store for those in need. It was designed to restore the dignity of choice.

Years later, as the fast fashion pandemic has gained momentum, the idea has been sustained and shaped into an action driver, addressing fast fashion, waste, promoting circular economies, and fostering a culture of mindful giving and sustainable fashion.

“The Sustainable Disclaimer campaign hijacks a familiar media convention - those dry legal lines tacked onto alcohol and gambling ads - and uses them to land an unexpected, hard-hitting message about the human and environmental cost of fast fashion,” says Abel.

A bigger impact

Fast fashion has a bigger impact on the planet than aviation and shipping combined.

Abel says that not enough people know that fast fashion accounts for 10% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.
It is responsible for a fifth of wastewater worldwide.

Because it is so affordable, people just buy clothes and then discard them after wearing them only a few times.

In the UK alone, 300,000 tonnes of clothes end up in landfills every year.

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Drive real impact

“The gravity of the situation meant we wanted to drive real impact. We didn’t just mimic disclaimers. We actually became them.

“By placing our campaign pieces immediately after traditional ads for popular fashion brands on the radio, in print, and on TV, we disguised them as real disclaimers.

“The work piggybacked on these existing media spaces, slipping in right where people usually stop paying attention.

“It’s only halfway through that you realise: this isn’t about alcohol or gambling, it’s about how we shop.”

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The human cost of fashion overconsumption

Abel says that the way society shops is broken.

“Fashion overconsumption has a human cost.

“It’s time to shop responsibly! And instead of leaving you helpless, adverts in the campaign end with a simple call to action: Donate your clothes to The Street Store.”

The Street Store is an open-source model, meaning anyone, anywhere in the world, can start one, but it depends on donated clothing.

Sustainable giving

Because of this, The Street Store actively encourages individuals to donate unused clothing.

“A seldom-used, good condition suit in the back of the cupboard could become a job interview for someone else.

“That is transformational, the antithesis of filling yet more landfills.

Sustainable giving can, and should, extend to sustainable fashion.

“And so, this campaign was designed to foster a culture of mindfulness about our consumption habits, and about how engaging in the circular economy by donating clothing is a small step with a potentially enormous impact on people and the planet when repeated at scale,” says Abel.