The IMPACT, May 2026, Issue 3

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When Miranda Priestly first graced our screens the clop of her red heels sparked a wry, satiric comparison: here was the 21st century’s answer to the cloven hooves of the underworld. Yet, as we ascend to her 17th floor Sixth Avenue office once more, it doesn’t feel as though luxury fashion has seen a fall from grace, simply that it reigns over a changed kingdom. Twenty years on, the forbidden fruit hangs ever lower: any one of us can and do make a deal with the devil, with fast fashion at our fingertips and overconsumption trained into our algorithms. But what’s that doing to the world of the living?

This issue, I dive into the stoney pits of fashion’s most nefarious and I’m looking for a specific kind of treasure (it’s not a vintage Coach bag or pair of bejewelled Manolo Blahniks). It’s the answer to this question: what impact are the changes of our modern world having on the industry today?

Fashion’s feudal system

In the original picture The Devil Wears Prada (2006), Andy miraculously secures herself the job of Miranda Priestly’s assistant with very little understanding of the cult that her new job throws her into. Andy makes it clear she doesn’t even care. It’s implied she feels even high fashion is beneath her intellectual tastes – she just wants to sink her teeth into some good journalism.

There is a particular scene involving a lumpy cerulean sweater that is dedicated to Andy’s prompt, scorching education into just how the fashion industry works. Luxury designers and editors are enthroned right at the top of the pyramid, Miranda explains, and it is under their reign that trends are born, trickle down, and are eventually consumed mindlessly by the masses.

In 2026, high fashion retains its prestige, but does it remain monarch? Yes, the runways of Prada or Miu Miu may still steer the direction or bring back silhouettes, colours, archival revivals and so on. But no, high fashion is not sole ruler, the ‘changed kingdom’ is far more democratic and I would argue that marks a radical turning point.

The impact of over-saturation

The trickle-down effect described by Miranda exists still, but the embankments of this moat have seen vast erosion and subsequently, flooding. In 2026, trends are lucky to stay clear of the clearance bin for five months, never mind the years it took for Andy to wind up in that sweater. Up until the 2000’s, trends took years to work their way across a culture and shape the styles of an era (just think how easily we can categorise the 60s, 70s, 80s), but everything moves quicker now. In our digital world, the symbiotic relationship between fast fashion, influencer culture and social media algorithms has accelerated trend cycles beyond recognition. Some styles move from exclusive catwalks to mass production in a matter of weeks, even days.

Micro-trends have led to extreme consumerism. Keep Britain Tidy reports that we are now buying twice as many garments as we were in 2015, and that the UK sends 300,000 tonnes of used clothing to landfill or the incinerator annually – more than any other European country. It’s easy to see how this happens, when within weeks a trend can be adopted and dropped by its audience. Forget a colour, brand, or bag being ‘so last year’, it can also be ‘so two months ago’.

If the rapid availability of trends at pocket change prices sounds impossible, that’s because it should be. The industry employs approximately 60 million factory workers worldwide and yet 2% earn less than the living wage.

Dr Amy Benstead, a Lecturer in Fashion Management at The University of Manchester, fights for fair fashion at both a national and international level, centring on the investigation of supply chain practices behind the global industry. Benstead examines forced labour, modern slavery risk, and representation of workers’ rights: contributing to government standards (such as BS 25700 and ISO 37200) and leading a Leverhulme Trust-funded project on worker voice in Leicester’s garment industry. In April, she was named an ‘emerging leader’ in her appointment upon the UK Young Academy.

“It’s great to be part of this incredible community that’s committed to addressing societal and global challenges,” Amy said, “including amplifying unheard and underrepresented voices.”

From Cottonopolis to change

At The University of Manchester, part of our institutional ethos is the guiding light for change, and fashion is no exception. After all, our city was the firing engine of the textile industry during the industrial revolution. Now, our researchers, students, and broader community as a city is redefining what this means for Manchester.

In the 19th century, Manchester was at the heart of modern textiles – processing over 80% of the world’s cotton. John Rylands was a foremost figure, becoming the city’s first multi-millionaire in the 19th century – employing a workforce of 15,000 people across 17 mills and shaping the lives of those who lived here. Rylands’ history is a complex one. The textile magnate made his fortune in cotton at a time that 75% of the world’s supply was grown in the American South, a production that hinged on the exploitation of enslaved labour.

Despite vastly benefitting from this system, in 1845 he stepped back. Among his other philanthropic programmes locally, Rylands openly supported slavery abolition, and introduced ‘free grown’ cotton which gave purchasing power to the moral choice.

By the 2010s, echoes of the past could be heard across the rainy city streets as old mills were converted into offices, and who moved in? Fast fashion brands. Manchester blazed into prominence once more with low-cost, affordable items from Pretty Little Thing, BooHoo, Missguided and In The Style. People from all incomes could suddenly find a ‘dupe’ of what their favourite celebrity or influencer was wearing, with brands hell-bent on delivering trends faster and cheaper than ever before. It’s the modern human and environmental cost of this that researchers like Dr Amy Benstead are keen to revolutionise.

With fashion woven into the fabric of the city’s past and present, The University of Manchester is especially ready to help lead that change in fair fashion and beyond. Sustainability and technology come together to form the core of our Undergraduate and Postgraduate programmes, and research is driving increasingly experimental advances.

Bridging creativity and computation, Dr Courtney Chrimes, lecturer in Digital Fashion Marketing, is part of a group of researchers exploring how artificial intelligence could help reimagine the third of materials wasted before garments even reach the shop floor or website.

Digital prototyping, generative design for sampling, and improved material selection are all a crucial part of this investigation. Dr Chrimes explains: ‘By rethinking design through AI and circularity, we can transform from one of the world’s most wasteful industries into a force for regenerative change.”

Mending the cycle: circular fashion

As a research-led University, we’re often all too aware how immaterial ‘change’ can sound – idealistic and far-off – but the landscape of fast fashion is changing as quickly as it melded together.

Since the 2010s normalised the buying and selling of second-hand garments, apps such as Depop and Vinted have enabled the pre-loved market to see exponential growth in the UK and Europe in recent years. In Europe,Vinted has surpassed traditional giants such as Zara and H&M in online brand rankings and confirmed a 38% growth Year on Year, squeezing aside brands like Boohoo and PrettyLittleThing who have seen declines of -20% and -19% respectively. According to its own Impact Report, at its highest adoption peak Vinted saved 680 kilotonnes of CO2 in 12 months. The portion of wardrobes across the UK that are second hand only keeps growing.

While reselling is a crucial component in a circular fashion economy, repairing and upcycling is not to be ignored. Extending a garment’s life by just nine months can reduce it’s carbon footprint by 20-30%.

As a Researcher at The University of Manchester, Dr Ghada Soliman’s initiative, Sustainable Threads, is certainly testament to practicing what you preach. Based in Hulme, this vibrant, community-led initiative teaches essential skills in clothing repair, up-cycling and sustainable living in a time that we need these skills on both a personal and industry-level scale.

A big believer in systemic change starting at a local level, Dr Soliman aims to reduce textile waste, promote sustainability, and build community connections through free workshops, hands-on skills, and fostering social inclusion and confidence. Sustainable Threads is designed especially to support asylum seekers, marginalised groups, and residents in South Manchester.

Individualism

Enabled by a pick ’n’ mix of different shopping options, combined with reports that 77% of Gen Z have repaired clothes at least once within the past 18 months, consumers are no longer buying from their local shop alone, like Andy in The Devil Wears Prada. They are also looking for both vintage luxury and everyday pieces on Vinted, finding ‘aesthetics’ on Pinterest, rewatching Chanel shows from 1995, buying the exact top they saw an influencer wear in-app onTikTok Shop, and some are customising clothes to adhere to trends without forking out a fortune.  

While clothing itself has always been a mode of self-expression, anyone fortunate enough to attend the V&A’s Marie Antoinette Style exhibition – which ran until March this year and was sponsored by Manolo Blahnik – could tell you that. Probably while scrolling through the evidence in their camera role, showcasing the 250-year-old wardrobe of  ‘the most fashionable and ill-fated queen in history’.

But that’s the thing, for most of history it was only those right at the top of fashion’s feudal system who could afford to keep up the act. In 18th and 19th century Britain, most wouldn’t even have visibility of what the latest cycles were, the closest opportunity being women who worked in domestic service being gifted a dress four or five seasons old. Fashion as an industry was exclusively for those with the means: the cultural capital to know the latest trends and the money for fabric – twenty yards and hundreds of days of labour, totalling thousands in modern cost. The crafty customisations which are now rising in popularity were the only means available to most 250 years ago.

It might not have been Prada she was wearing, but the eye-watering spends of the ‘ill-fated’ Marie Antoinette deemed her a rather worthy victim of condemnation by French Revolutionaries in poverty-striken France. In 1979, bread prices had risen by 88%, wages dropped by 25%, and as starvation became a nationwide issue it was rumoured the Queen was so blissfully unaware as to blithely suggest ‘let them eat cake’.

The resurgence of the bow is a particularly full circle moment for this reason. What was underestimated to be a micro-trend in 2023, was first popularised in 17th century French courts – an identifiable totem of Marie Antoinette herself. Yet, it has been so widely and long-adopted due to just how accessible it is. For the cost of a roll of ribbon you can temporarily customise jeans, bags, hairstyles and be on trend. The next challenge will be ensuring that customisation and individual style does not in itself become a ‘trend’ and graduates instead to a shift.

What does Manchester wear?

Manchester has what Vogue calls ‘a sense of fashion all of its own’ influenced by it’s industrial past, second-hand shopping options, music exports (Oasis, Barry Gibb, Morrisey) and rave scene, and it’s identity as a football city. The huge influence of football culture is channelled clearly even through the Adidas shoes hitting the ground through Ancoats, with High Snobiety reporting that ‘historically, Manchester is a city that will always resonate towards the three stripes’.

In 2026, the Manchester fashion industry employs nearly 50,000 Mancunians, and beyond its hub of fast fashion brands, now has cult high fashion names such as Nadine Merabu, Adanola and Represent to its name. Little over two years ago, the city also welcomed the Chanel Metiers D’Art Show, which saw A-listers crowd into a custom Northern Quarter catwalk in the slashing December rain. Meanwhile, Manchester Fashion Week is emerging as a keystone annual event.

Dubbed ‘the fashion capital of the north’, the worker-bee city is a honeypot for diverse street style and The University of Manchester is right at the beating heart of its sustainable innovation. The makes the institution a catalyst for shifting attitudes and influences in the industry.

On the release date of the sequel, I had the novel idea of politely stopping someone outside the cinema. Not just anyone, but someone carrying the 2025 Prada Nylon Shoulder bag in baby blue and maroon. After complementing the bag, she says it’s from eBay. “What do you think the devil wears in 2026?” I ask, coy.

She replies: “Ah man, I’m gonna have to say Shein.”

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