Volume 3.0: Centre for Sustainable Fashion: tactics for change

Documenting the debates raised at the Fashioning the Future Summit, a milestone event run by the CSF in October 2008, and strategising to propose new possibilities for the fashion sector which minimise the negative social, environmental and cultural effects of our practices and maximise connection, innovation and positivity. The keynote speeches from Michael McDonough, Anthony Kleanthous and Sungjoo Kim are also available to view

Volume 2.0: Centre for Sustainable Fashion: Fashioning the Future

Profiling the designers, radicals and change makers involved in the groundbreaking Fashioning the Future Summit, including the finalists of the Fashioning the Future 2008 Awards. Contributions from Lucy Orta, Nicole Hahn, Michael McDonough, Dr Frances Corner and Anthony Kleanthous

Sustainable or greenwash? An analysis of how fast fashion brands use social media marketing

This thesis examines how fast fashion brands use Social Media Marketing to promote their sustainable initiatives. Drawing on a content analysis study, Instagram posts of a sample of four fast fashion brands were analyzed. The findings from this thesis suggest that there is a high level of evidence of greenwashing in all mentioned brands, mainly regarding vagueness of green communication. A survey was also conducted as a support to understand how consumers perceive the brands’ CSR advertising on social media. The results indicate that the participants had a potential change of perception after seeing the posts, perceiving the brands as more eco-friendly. However, they still agree that the green communication used in the posts was broad and misleading. By providing insights on how brands’ use recent digital platforms to promote their sustainable communication, the present study enriches the theoretical understanding on CSR advertising and greenwashing in the fast fashion industry. Additionally, it also gives managerial recommendations for the brands to have a more effective communication and raise societal awareness so consumers can identify signs of greenwashing on social media.Esta tese examina como as marcas de moda utilizam Social Media Marketing para promover as suas iniciativas sustentáveis. Com base num estudo de análise de conteúdo, foram analisados os posts Instagram de uma amostra de quatro marcas de moda rápida. Os resultados desta tese sugerem que há um elevado nível de evidência de lavagem verde em todas as marcas mencionadas, principalmente no que diz respeito à imprecisão da comunicação verde. Foi também realizado um questionário como apoio para compreender como os consumidores percebem a publicidade de RSE das marcas nos meios de comunicação social. Os resultados indicam que os participantes tiveram uma potencial mudança de percepção após terem visto as postagens, percebendo as marcas como mais ecológicas. No entanto, continuam a concordar que a comunicação verde utilizada nas postagens era ampla e falaciosa. Ao fornecer informações sobre como as marcas utilizam plataformas digitais recentes para promover a sua comunicação sustentável, o presente estudo enriquece a compreensão teórica sobre publicidade RSE e lavagem verde na indústria da moda rápida. Além disso, também fornece recomendações de gerenciamento para as marcas, a fim de terem uma comunicação mais eficaz bem como aumentar a consciência social para que os consumidores possam identificar sinais de "greenwashing" nas mídias digitais

Fashioning the circular economy with disruptive marketing tactics mimicking fast fashion’s exploitation of social capital: a case study exploring the innovative fashion rental business model “Wardrobe”

With the threat of the climate emergency intensifying and limited time left to reduce irreversible consequences, the need to consider how natural resources are excavated and managed from cradle to grave intensifies. This positions the circular economy (CE) as being highly relevant, particularly for the fashion industry, which is criticised for encouraging continued frequent and impulsive consumption of inexpensive garments with limited longevity. Advancing the circular fashion economy (CFE) has received little attention. Limited research to date has found that consumers have not been socialised to consider fashion acquisition as a collaborative or sharing activity, revealing an established attitude–behaviour gap that prohibits the advancement of the sustainable-fashion agenda. Primarily, fashion is imbued with social and emotional capital, as experienced with the dominant social paradigm (DSP) of fast fashion. This paper argues that similar tactics can be adopted for sustainable fashion practices through the CFE by exemplifying a case study of a fashion-renting platform, “Wardrobe,” that enables consumers to rent fashion owned by influencers and celebrities. In doing so, the paper makes four contributions to the knowledge: Firstly, in developing a conceptual framework from research examining fashion, sustainable fashion, and the CFE, the paper illuminates how fashion marketing emphasises social and celebrity capital to appeal to consumer emotions, encouraging frequent impulsive consumption, and how this can be transferred to the CFE. Secondly, the DSP is contextualised alongside the theory of disruptive innovation to understand how social norms of fashion consumption can be disrupted. Thirdly, although there is an emerging literature stream examining the CE and CFE, this focuses more on consumer practice and behaviours, and little attention has been paid to how the CFE can be marketed to engage with consumers. Fourthly, this paper illuminates how similar marketing tactics used by fast fashion can be exploited to advance the CFE

Fashioning sustainability: Understanding the dynamic practices of sustainable fashion

In today’s environmental climate, sustainability initiatives target multiple aspects of everyday life, including fashion. Yet despite the increasing number of anti-consumerism campaigns and the increase in sustainable fashion labels entering the market, mainstream fashion practices remain environmentally unsustainable. In addition, fashion supply chains remain notoriously opaque and lengthy, often hiding exploitative and dangerous production practices. As an active member of the sustainable fashion movement, I occupy the position of activist-researcher to examine fashion and sustainability in Australia. This position provides access to the industry and movement but also allows the critical distance necessary to identify interconnections and insights regarding fashion’s complex sustainability considerations. Specifically I challenge the reliance on consumer behaviour change tactics that dominate sustainable fashion activism and argue for a more holistic approach to fashion and sustainability. Drawing on Elizabeth Shove’s (and colleagues’) social practice theory, which positions the dynamics of social practices – not people – at the heart of sustainability solutions and social transformation, this thesis considers fashion not simply as a “lifestyle choice” but as a socially and culturally dynamic practice. In order to effectively address the “unmaking of unsustainability” of fashion, the co-existing practices of fashion – consisting of design, production, retailing, media and consumption – must be interrogated as a fashion practice complex, including the interactions between and amongst the practices to understand how they have co-evolved to their current unsustainable state. The imbrication of these fashion practices is understood by drawing upon empirical data gathered via a number of qualitative research methods including in-depth interviews and participant observation with Australia’s sustainable fashion movement; in-depth interviews with leading sustainable fashion labels and mainstream fashion companies engaged in sustainability initiatives; and an ethnography of fashion shopping conducted with “fashion lovers” consisting of participant observation, in-depth interviews and wardrobe examinations. My data and analysis highlight how existing campaigns addressing fashion and sustainability neglect the complexity of fashion practices, particularly in terms of placing excessive responsibility with consumers to change unsustainable industry practices that are out of their control. I argue that industry must overcome a number of obstacles to transition to a sustainable mode of production and the practice of sustainable fashion entrepreneurs may provide a roadmap toward more creative solutions to sustainability if issues of scale and emotional labour can be addressed. I also argue that consumers are more aware of fashion’s sustainability issues than is often assumed, although they can be confused by contradictory or unsubstantiated messages used in sustainable fashion campaigns. Instead, unsustainable fashion consumption practices have evolved through a range of factors, including everyday life considerations, concerns around identity and social codes, the navigation of emotional needs and states, the lack of access to sustainable fashion, and the ease and ubiquity of fast fashion choices. In other words, the practice of fashion consumption is already layered before issues of sustainability are considered. This thesis therefore asks how the fashion industry and the sustainable fashion movement might more effectively co-evolve fashion practices toward sustainable outcomes and highlights the potential for the fashion industry to channel its creativity toward sustainability measures

The situal self: fashioning identity discourses and loved objects

That we are what we have… is perhaps the most basic and powerful fact of consumer behaviour’ (Belk 1988 p. 139). Women’s individual identity discourses are encoded socially and culturally through relationships with material objects and practices of dress. Relationships with loved objects yield an emotional and intellectual approach that literally unpicks fashion, exposing its operations, its relations to the body whilst at the same time binding feminine structures. This more expansive view of fashion situates the relationship material objects have to the self and how women relate to the material world as a universe of meaning making. The phenomenological inquiry presents a set of methods for practice based research including observations from workshops, in-depth interviews, case studies, films and questionnaires. The research as practice approach includes visual and verbal narratives that portray the essence of the self, interpreting the conceptual complexities that are inherently tentative, temporal and temporary in identity construction. The intimate research portraits are presented as the interplay between image and text; whilst the films portray the silent spaces in research contexts. These visual apparatus speak of expressions of embodiment. It is the articulation of these feminine practices that elucidates the incorporation of the socially constructed body into the corporeal. The situal thus embodies the lived relation as a result of the phenomena experienced in the specific social encounter. The situal, positions the social practices of fashion as a series of intimate identity discourses. Through this collective engagement, heterogeneous forms of knowledge emerge, transforming the act of dressing into a wider view of self and life

Fashion brands communicating and interacting in Instagram: a netnography approach

The study aims to analyze and compare how fashion brands of different categorization communicate in Instagram. Six global brands (Zara, H&M, Prada, Gucci, Nike, and Adidas) are chosen to be analyzed due to their different type/category of brands and their worldwide recognition. Netnography concept and method is used to conduct the data collection and data analyze during a period of time of six mouth. The results show that overall fast fashion brands (Zara and H&M) emerge to be more effective than other fashion categories in online communication. The Haute-de-couture brands (Prada and Gucci) reveal to be very similar in the way they communicate, demonstrating a good level of interactivity with consumers. The Sports brand (Nike and Adidas) have a low level of communication with the consumers and low number of photos and videos uploaded, which results in an average online communication of the brands in Instagram. This research highlights that to be successful in the online communication, fashion brands must be always updating photos and videos, they need to interact with consumers and make them feel a part of the brand, use celebrities to give more notoriety to the brand and be always present in the latest trends.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Regulating Clothing Outwork: A Sceptic's View

By applying the strategies of international anti-sweatshop campaigns to the Australian context, recent regulations governing home-based clothing production hold retailers responsible for policing the wages and employment conditions of clothing outworkers who manufacture clothing on their behalf. This paper argues that the new approach oversimplifies the regulatory challenge by assuming (1) that Australian clothing production is organised in a hierarchical ‘buyer-led’ linear structure in which core retail firms have the capacity to control their suppliers’ behaviour; (2) that firms act as unitary moral agents; and (3) that interventions imported from other times and places are applicable to the contemporary Australian context. After considering some alternative regulatory approaches, the paper concludes that the new regulatory strategy effectively privatises responsibility for labour market conditions – a development that cries out for further debate

Profiling business support provision for small, medium and micro-sized enterprises in London’s fashion sector

The primary aim of this paper is to build a profile of the business support landscape that exists for fashion SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises) and MSEs (micro-sized enterprises) in London. In the face of multiple challenges, fashion sector SME/MSEs benefit from the services provided by business support organisations. We have identified 21 fashion support organisations that exist in London. They can be broadly divided into two types of business support organisations: fashion incubators and partial-support organisations, both of which play an equally important role in the sector