Piles of damaged goods teetering next to tills, faulty clothing cut up and dumped in waste bins alongside old food packaging, "chaotic" stores with managers willing to throw scuffed and stretched goods away rather than discount them for staff or customers to purchase.
That's the picture painted of one major Urban Outfitters store, according to shocking eye witness testimony gathered in recent weeks by BusinessGreen.
Having written about the fashion's industry exorbitant environmental impacts for the last three years - and tracked the rising consumer concern over the issue - I've taken a close professional and personal interest in how fashion brands' sustainability policies are enacted in practice.
So when a friend came to me with tales of her experience of working in Urban Outfitters' Amsterdam store while studying in the city during 2017, my professional interest was piqued. This website has since collected testimonies from six former employees of the brand's Amsterdam store in the Netherlands, who repeatedly recounted seeing - and being personally asked to - destroy clothing or other goods if they were deemed damaged by store managers. Many of them had worked at the store in the past year.
Fashion is one of the world's most polluting industries, but the revelations come at a time when the sector is facing unprecedented pressure to clean up its act. In the wake of a series of waste scandals, including reports of some brands burning unwanted clothes, MPs in the UK are calling for legislative reform, the UN is pushing for more sustainable practices across the industry, and shoppers are increasingly favouring brands which prioritise ethical production.
Yet experts believe overproduction of stock is still fuelling perverse incentives for high street brands to discard stock, even among those brands not usually associated with 'fast fashion'.
Urban Outfitters is towards the opposite end of the high-street scale to budget outlets, where clothing is piled high and sold cheaply. The brand has cultivated a reputation among young hipsters around the world by mixing vintage fashion with new trend-led clothing and designer brands.
Read more here
