Determining Effective Sustainable Fashion Communication Strategies

Abstract

This chapter investigates the current techniques employed by upcycled and sustainable fashion brands to communicate the features and benefits of their products, as well as their benefits to consumers and society at large. At the same time we look at the effectiveness of these strategies in the modern fashion industry. An interpretivist methodology was utilised in this chapter, with 14 in-depth semi-structure interviews providing the basis for the findings and discussion section. Interviewees were selected purposively and include nine ethical fashion brands, and five sustainable fashion experts (CSR specialist, artist and mending activist, upcycled and sustainable fashion expert, and closed loop production experts). Findings included key industry perspectives on communication and consumer issues relating to sustainability, design and behaviour change. Insights about knowledge brands and designers believe consumers already hold, how this informs design and production decisions, and what issues brands and designers are still querying in consumer behaviour are presented. Information on the current strategies employed to communicate in-store and through multi-channel media, the effectiveness of these techniques and what brands and designers still want and need to know regarding these communication strategies are also covered.

Framing Sustainable Fashion Concepts on Social Media. An Analysis of #slowfashionaustralia Instagram Posts and Post-COVID Visions of the Future

“…These impacts are exacerbated by the "fast fashion" model that currently dominates the industry and is characterized by reduced garment shelf-time production and consumption and reduced costs to encourage excessive consumption of disposable fashion [1]. Years after the sustainable fashion movement started, which was accompanied by an increase in awareness for related marketing and communication strategies [2,3], at the beginning of the new decade of the 21st century, a global pandemic revealed the continued unsustainability and fragility of the fashion market through the disruption of consumer practices and values [4], supply chains, and logistics [5]. COVID-19 challenged the market as well as individuals to reflect on their individual consumption practices and to develop a vision for these practices in the future-for either going back to normal or shifting towards more sustainable practices.…”

“…Orminski et al [23] studied sustainable fashion from an environmental communication perspective. In their study, the authors focused on social media, mainly Twitter, which provides a platform to communicate sustainable fashion concepts like slow fashion to a wide audience-without exclusively focusing on marketing and consumer engagement [2,24]. The authors offer a new understanding of perceptions of sustainable fashion based on the diffusion of innovation framework; they identified influencers as opinion leaders in the public (online) sustainable fashion debate.…”

Sustainable knowledge from consumer perspective addressing microfibre pollution

“…Past research (Aman et al, 2012;Heeren and Singh, 2016) predominantly focusses on two or less different sustainable knowledge types, which is seen to not be sufficient in investigating the convergence of knowledge (Kaiser and Fuhrer, 2003). For consumers to be able to make an informed decision, information/knowledge needs to be broadcasted in a clear and coherent manner (Han et al, 2017). Thus, to transfer sustainable knowledge effectively is not only a question of the content but also the right way to communicate it with regard to format, timing and context.…”

“…Research lacks focus from the consumer perspective of MFP; this could provide insights into the deep-rooted causes and provide feasible solutions to reduce long-term microfibre release (Henry et al, 2019). Although past research has highlighted potential microfibre mitigation strategies that can be implemented by consumers, such as reducing synthetic clothing consumption and changing maintenance behaviours during washing, these are not always implemented as these strategies require related knowledge that may not be readily available to consumers (Han et al, 2017;Laitala et al, 2018). We address this gap by investigating what sustainable knowledge consumers have in relation to MFP and how they gained this knowledge.…”

“…Kart, 2019). In order to adapt those approaches requires related knowledge that is readily available and accessible for consumers (Han et al, 2017;Laitala et al, 2018). Yet, this is currently not addressed in research.…”