French shoppers say they still can’t navigate sustainable fashion. A new eco-label, repair bonus, PFAS ban and anti-fast-fashion law aim to change that.
After years of sustainability reporting, certification programs and environmental disclosures, fashion consumers say they still don’t understand sustainable fashion. That was among the biggest findings from a consultation conducted by Paris Good Fashion and Make.org, which gathered nearly 170,000 participants across France, Italy, the U.K. and the U.S. between Feb. 19 and April 16. Information, transparency and education ranked as shoppers’ top priority, and the confusion they describe is colliding with a wave of French regulation built, at least on paper, to resolve it.
“The first thing that came back everywhere was: ‘We don’t understand sustainable fashion. We don’t know how to buy sustainable fashion,'” Isabelle Lefort, cofounder and general delegate of Paris Good Fashion, said at the findings’ presentation at the Institut Français de la Mode. Calls for clearer information were up from 15 percent in the organization’s first consultation in 2020, with 43 percent of respondents saying they wanted to understand the environmental and social impact of their clothing before anything else.
Much of what they asked for is already moving through French law. When respondents cited the Nutri-Score — France’s A-to-F food grading system that sits on the front of every package — as a model for fashion, they were essentially describing the coût environnemental, or environmental cost label, which entered into force in October 2025. Calculated through Ecobalyse, the government’s official tool, the score rates a garment on water consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, biodiversity damage and microfiber pollution using life cycle assessment. The first phase is voluntary and brand-led, but from 2026 any third party, including retailers, NGOs and comparison platforms, can publish a brand’s score without its approval, using conservative data where figures are missing.
The disconnect runs the other way too. Tools the industry has championed barely registered with the public: the word “decarbonization” was absent from every response, and the EU’s Digital Product Passport, which became active for textiles in January 2026 and carries fiber composition, origin and chemical-compliance data via QR code, was noted as poorly understood or not mentioned at all. “We may have been so focused on being rigorous and avoiding greenwashing that our messaging became too technical,” Karine Viel, director of sustainable development at Galeries Lafayette, said, pointing to a proliferation of certifications that has done more to crowd the conversation than clarify it.
Repair surfaced as one of the strongest themes within the broader category of circularity, with respondents calling for a standardized “repair score” that would show how easily a garment can be mended and kept in use. Here, France has built the financial scaffolding ahead of the signage. The Bonus Réparation, established under the AGEC anti-waste law and managed by Refashion, covers up to 60 percent of a repair, from roughly 6 euros for a tear to 25 euros for resoling leather shoes. In two years it has funded more than 1.7 million clothing and shoe repairs and saved consumers 13 million euros, while labeled artisans reported activity up 13.2 percent and 72 percent said they had gained new customers through the scheme.
Health also emerged as a newer concern, largely absent from the 2020 consultation and now showing up as references to allergies, endocrine disruptors and the “forever chemicals” known as PFAS. That worry maps onto France’s PFAS ban, which took effect on Jan. 1, covering textiles, cosmetics, footwear and waterproofing agents, with a broader ban on PFAS in all textiles set for 2030. Researchers have linked the compounds to hormonal disruption, immune effects and increased cancer risk, which gives the wellness framing respondents reached for a concrete regulatory anchor rather than a vague unease.
Respondents also ranked “slower fashion” as the third-largest priority overall, ahead of quality, materials and production relocation, with participants framing the problem as overconsumption and information overload more than ultra-fast fashion alone. That priority arrived alongside the clearest policy signal yet: on June 10, the French Senate voted 337 to one in favor of legislation that imposes a per-item penalty on high-volume, low-cost clothing, set at 5 euros in 2026 and rising to 10 euros by 2030, capped at 50 percent of a product’s pre-tax price. The bill also bans advertising for ultra-fast fashion and sanctions influencers who promote it, measures widely read as aimed at Shein and Temu. Its path is not settled, as the European Commission has said the law conflicts with single-market and e-commerce rules.
For all the momentum behind that law, the consultation found shoppers themselves leaning the other way: a majority favored education, awareness and extending the life of existing products over regulation alone, even as demand for government intervention stayed strong. Paris Good Fashion will share the results with participating brands and policymakers to translate those expectations into action. The throughline holds across the consultation and the legislation now reshaping the French market, with shoppers asking for plain-language tools to tell good from bad and the country assembling them faster than it is explaining them.
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