Bad news for all you ‘wardrobers’ out there: it looks like it’s about to become far more difficult to return clothes you’ve already worn.
A number of online retailers are to set to start using the ‘R-Turn Tag’, designed by retail technology company Checkpoint Systems.
The tag is easy to remove, but once removed it’s impossible to reattach – and you won’t be able to return clothes unless it’s intact.
This basically means you that can’t wear clothes you’ve purchased in public if you intend to return them (known as wardrobing), or that doing so would be pretty embarrassing.
Would you want every single person you meet on a night out to know, instantly, that you’re a cheapskate and a swindler?
But then again, maybe this will backfire and wearing the the R-Turn Tag in public will become an ironic fashion statement.
It’s not clear exactly which retailers will be implementing the tag yet, but Checkpoint Systems said they are in talks with some stores.
Maybe being able to use ASOS as a library for free clothes was too good to last.
Serial returning of clothes (a practice which one fifth of us indulge in) is estimated to cost the industry £1.5billion a year, so it’s understandable they’ve decided to crack down.
This isn’t the first step the industry has taken: earlier this year, ASOS announced they would deactivate accounts which returned a suspiciously high number of clothes.
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