[hilbert42]

"...it literally costs less to make surplus items than to scrap them."

Right, my rhetorical point somewhat expanded here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47031527

"But you can't entirely blame the clothing markets..."

Nor stupid consumers, but watering down blame will weaken resolve to fix the problem. Perhaps it should become fashionable to criticize those who buy too many clothes by asking "do you really need that item?". Criticizing and ostracizing works, it greatly reduced cigarette smoking.

[miki123211]

It's far easier to ostracize cigarette smokers (because you can see them smoke). You don't really know how many clothes somebody has unless you really pay attention to them, and nobody does.

[hilbert42]

There are multiple ways to tackle the problem, once we had competitions such as 'Miss World', 'Miss America', etc. that were popular but which now are very much seen as sexist.

The message would soon get across if being seen browsing in a clothing store wasn't the best look (like being seen in a porn shop is embarrassing). Or imagine the impact it were embarrassing to be seen at a fashion show or buying fashion magazines. Throughout history there have been bigger changes in social attitudes than that.

A rowdy mob picketing a few fashion shows would attract world attention to the problem.