At the height of the holiday season on Amsterdam’s Kalverstraat last December, thousands of shoppers who regularly descend on the popular shopping district came face to face with the grim reality behind humanity’s sartorial excess.

A local activist group had deposited an enormous pile of clothes on the sidewalk, in sight of stores such as Adidas, Zara and the popular Dutch casual fashion chain Cotton Club. Some seven feet-tall and 25-feet around, the garment dump drew puzzled looks from passersby, some of whom stopped to read handwritten signs poking out the top. “Every 10 minutes we throw away this much clothing in the Netherlands,” read one.

The intent, the organizers said, wasn’t just to draw attention to clothing waste, but to urge companies to reveal how much clothing they make — a

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