What is sustainable fashion? Henninger, Claudia E; Alevizou, Panayiota J; Oates, Caroline J
Journal of fashion marketing and management,
01/2016, Letnik:
20, Številka:
4
Journal Article
Recenzirano
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Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine what the term sustainable fashion means from the perspective of micro-organisations, experts, and consumers.
Design/methodology/approach
This research ...is qualitative in nature, utilising a multi-methods case study approach (semi-structured interviews, semiotics, questionnaires). Grounded analysis was applied to analyse the data.
Findings
Findings indicate that interpretation of sustainable fashion is context and person dependent. A matrix of key criteria provides the opportunity to find common elements.
Research limitations/implications
Due to the nature of this research the sample size is limited and may not be generalised. Data were collected in the UK and are limited to a geographical region.
Practical implications
An important implication is that defining sustainable fashion is vital in order to avoid challenges, such as greenwashing, which were faced in other industries that have a longer history in sustainable practices. Micro-organisations should take advantage of identifying key sustainable fashion criteria, which will enable them to promote their fashion collections more effectively.
Social implications
The criteria identified provide assurance for consumers that sustainable fashion is produced with social aspects in mind (fair wages, good working conditions).
Originality/value
The paper proposes a matrix that allows micro-organisations to clearly identify their collections as sustainable.
Increasingly, sustainable fashion products consumption (SFPC) receives attention from both academic scholars and practitioners. While fashion consumers profess concerns about sustainability issues, ...the extant literature demonstrates a gap between such concerns and actual consumption decisions and behaviors. This study illustrates how marketers can encourage contemporary consumers to become strongly oriented toward sustainable fashion product consumption (SFPC). Heider's balance theory and consumer luxury brand experiences explain and reveal how a state of psychological imbalance causes the attitude–behavior gap between sustainable fashion and SFPC behaviors. This report includes new propositions explaining SFPC that receive support via focus group interviews and direct observations and post-behavior interviews of staged shopping trips— each participant was given money (approx. USD $180) to spend in the two eco-fashion stores. Developing and staging memorable consumer-centered experiences that orient consumers toward SFPC encourages the consumers achieving desired balance states.
This study investigated how social power, parasocial interaction, and social capital influence the consumer's purchase intention of sustainable fashion products in the fashion YouTube context. We ...surveyed 230 YouTube users from South Korea to investigate the effects of social power on parasocial interaction, the effects of parasocial interaction on social capital, and the effects of social capital on purchase intention. The results confirm that social capital is a strong influential variable for the purchase intention of sustainable fashion products. Thus, fashion marketers should consider social capital management in the fashion YouTube context when tailoring their brand communications. This study helps clarify the relationships between social capital and the purchase intention for sustainable fashion products. It also contributes to the theoretical foundation of and has implications for sustainable fashion marketing and management.
New and existing companies are looking for ways to thrive in a competitive environment with innovative business models while respecting society and avoiding actions that harm the planet. Trends such ...as circular economy, fair trade, lowsumerism, and sharing economy are some of the many emerging entrepreneurial approaches that address this issue, but there is still a gap between what theory argues and the levels of environmental and social sustainability realized when theory is put into practice. In fact, most research on the topic of sustainable business models is still exploratory and does not fully acknowledge these emerging approaches, whose definitions, boundaries, and defining characteristics are still somewhat vague. This study seeks to contribute to the understanding of the inner entrepreneurial dynamics of innovative sustainable business models. In particular, we focus on the fashion business, a resource-intensive industry in which opportunities to reduce environmental impacts and to innovate business models abound. The aim of our research is to investigate innovative business models in the fashion industry that have sustainability as their defining characteristic, especially in terms of value proposition. In order to do that, we combine a systematic review of the literature with empirical research comprised of six interviews with specialists in sustainability, business model innovation, and the fashion industry, along with eight case studies on innovative fashion startups we define as ‘born sustainable.’ As a result, we propose a synthesizing framework that discloses trends and drivers of innovative and sustainable business models in the fashion industry. We also highlight opportunities and challenges for researchers and entrepreneurs interested in this topic.
This study draws on the theory of social practices as a novel theoretical lens to understand sustainable organic food consumption. Through a situated investigation of the South Korean organic foods ...market, the findings uncover three consumption practices, which include investing in long-term wellbeing, expressing sustainability values, and the signaling of social status. A critical examination of these practices reveals that they closely resemble the field of modern luxury fashion consumption. Thus, we posit that organic food consumption can be conceived as a particular type of fashion trend. The paper concludes with the discussion of theoretical contributions and managerial implications arising from this conceptualization.
Consumers often have positive attitudes about green marketing, yet their fashion purchases are not linked to sustainability, revealing an unbalanced psychological state. Based on balance theory, we ...explain how environmental priming can increase consumer preferences for fashion products with green logos. Using fMRI, we identify the neural representation of the green logo effect as significant activations in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). Prior exposure to environmental priming messages increased brain activations in the superior parietal lobule (SPL) and the bilateral lingual gyri (LG) during green-related communication, reflecting brain processes of relational reasoning and leading to increased preference for fashion products that bear a green logo. We discuss managerial implications related to the effectiveness of “nudge” communication techniques in setting up the tone for sustainable fashion marketing.
Purpose
The sustainable fashion (SF) literature is fragmented across the management discipline, leaving the path to a SF future unclear. As of yet, there has not been an attempt to bring these ...insights together or to more generally explore the question of “what is known about SF in the management literature and where could the SF field go from there?”. The purpose of this paper is to bring together the field to identify opportunities for societal impact and further research.
Design/methodology/approach
A systematic literature review was conducted from the first appearances of SF in the management literature in 2000 up to papers published in June 2019, which resulted in 465 included papers.
Findings
The results illustrate that SF research is largely defined by two approaches, namely, pragmatic change and radical change. The findings reveal seven research streams that span across the discipline to explore how organisational and consumer habits can be shaped for the future.
Research limitations/implications
What is known about SF is constantly evolving, therefore, the paper aims to provide a representative sample of the state of SF in management literature to date.
Practical implications
This review provides decision makers with insights that have been synthesised from across the management field.
Originality/value
This review identifies knowledge gaps and informs managerial decision making in the field, particularly through serving as a foundation for further research.
This study explores if, how and through what channels millennials' sustainability values translate into action when it comes to fashion garments. By testing a research model on 448 European ...millennials, it contrasts extant theories of planned behaviour, finding that purchase intent is often guided by unintentional, non-linear processes wherein trust in intermediaries such as celebrity influencers, rather than the fashion retailers’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) approach condition behaviour. For fashion retailers, it suggests the strategic use of influencers to (un)consciously market sustainable garments. Its novelty is built on sustainably sustaining fashion consumption in a post-pandemic world, characterised by increased online sales.
•Trust in the online retail context is built through intermediaries, not directly between buyer and seller.•Online purchases for millennials occur due to unintentional, non-linear processes.•Online strategies such as social media influencers should be used to (un)consciously market sustainable garments.
Implementing sustainable development goals defined by UNESCO encompasses diverse activities and spheres of contemporary life, including the issues of responsible production and consumption (goal 12). ...The fashion sector is often mentioned in this context and considered both ethically and environmen1tally problematic, especially taking into account clothing overproduction coupled with decreasing of its quality and offshoring to non -European countries. Fashion designers – owners of independent fashion brands based in specific local contexts – seem to be especially well prepared to implement in practice the idea of sustainable fashion often also referred to as responsible, ethical or slow fashion. The paper presents results of a qualitative exploratory research among Polish small, independent fashion firms. Analysing in -depth interviews with creative entrepreneurs based in different parts of Poland (Kraków, Łódź, Bytom, Warsaw, other cities and towns), the investigation considers issues such as: how do they understand the concept of sustainable fashion, how do they implement it in their entrepreneurial activities, what challenges and opportunities do they see in this respect, especially taking into account that their entrepreneurial activities situate them between the more symbolic -economy oriented creative sector and the more practically -oriented traditional garment and apparel sector?
This research explores the theme of social innovation in fashion industry through coworking spaces as focal points to deal with the challenges the fashion industry faces to. Based on a case study, ...the paper demonstrates that coworkings can act as spaces of convergence, where people who do not know each other can meet and, from there, work together to create new models. The case studied was a fashion coworking space with a focus on sustainable fashion companies called Malha (2017). The results shows that coworkings face practical challenges for their consolidation as focal points, mainly in relation to the construction of a truly collaborative and transparent culture and the financial sustainability of the enterprise itself. The discussion demonstrates that coworkings are more than spaces for sharing resources, they involve values and a culture of their own that, if not reinforced on a daily basis practice, weakens the credibility of the space, making it impossible to act as a focal point. Finally, the article explores the strategic principles for coworking spaces to act as focal points, reducing the ambivalences between the concept and the practice.
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