This year's Sustainable Fashion Week theme is Threads of Resistance. It asks people to step away from fast fashion and build a wardrobe that means something.

RIP makes clothes, so we are part of the contradiction. Fabric, printing, embroidery, packaging and delivery all have an impact. A tasteful green badge would not make that disappear.

What we can do is make fewer empty claims and pay more attention to what happens after the product photograph.

The front-door test

The clothes that earn their place are rarely the precious ones. They are the jacket hanging by the door, the tee that improves after twenty washes and the hoodie your partner has quietly annexed.

They work on the school run. They survive a skatepark. They layer properly when Britain remembers it has weather. You put them on when you are five minutes late and cannot be bothered constructing an outfit.

That is why RIP keeps returning to workwear shapes, heavyweight tees and straightforward layers. Durability should not be revolutionary. It should be normal.

Wear is not always damage. Sometimes it is proof that something earned its place.

What we can honestly claim

Some RIP pieces are made to order, which helps us avoid holding large speculative runs. We use products chosen for repeat wear and we listen when customers tell us the fit, finish or fabric is wrong.

Those are operating choices, not sainthood. Made to order still uses resources. A premium blank still has a supply chain. Small brands can make poor decisions too, only with fewer meeting rooms in which to discuss them.

So our position is deliberately modest:

• make things people will reach for repeatedly;
• describe products specifically rather than hiding behind vague green language;
• avoid unnecessary production where made to order works;
• improve the product when real use exposes a problem;
• keep clothing useful through washing, wearing, repair and passing it on.

Useful for longer

A repaired chore jacket is still a chore jacket. A faded tee still works. A scratched skateboard does not become pointless because it looks used. We understand this instinctively with the things that become part of our lives.

Perhaps the aim is not to keep clothing looking new. Perhaps it is to keep it in use.

That is what resistance looks like from here: less disposable attention, fewer perfect claims and more clothes people actually return to.

RIP Industries / Real in Progress