Circular Signals #02
What used to feel alternative is now becoming part of everyday fashion.
Platforms like Depop and Vinted have made secondhand mainstream. Brands are experimenting with rental.
Repair is being reintroduced into the system.
On the surface, everything looks like progress. But step back for a moment.
We are still buying often.
Still rotating quickly.
Still letting go too soon.
The system has evolved. Our behavior hasn’t. So consumption didn’t disappear. It adapted. Secondhand instead of new. Access instead of ownership. “Conscious” instead of careless.
But still more.
This is the part that is easy to miss. Circular fashion didn’t promise less activity. It promised better outcomes.
But better outcomes don’t come from options alone. They come from how those options are used. And right now, we haven’t really changed that. Because the real shift was never about where we buy from. It was about how long we keep things. And that part remains mostly invisible.
We don’t track it.
We don’t measure it.
We rarely even think about it.
So we move through circular systems
the same way we moved through linear ones.
Faster than we realize.
More than we need.
Without seeing the full picture.
Which raises a harder question. If circular fashion doesn’t change behavior, what exactly is it changing?
Because without a shift in how long things stay in use, we risk rebuilding the same system under a different name.
Circular fashion is not failing. But it hasn’t changed us yet.
(This is what I’m building with Tuleva; helping us see whether circular choices actually reduce consumption, not just shift it.)