The Intersection of Fashion, Immersive Technology, and Sustainability: A Literature Review

Abstract

Fashion industry emissions, resource use, and waste are attracting increasing consumer and government attention, with broad agreement that a new approach is required along the supply chain. Following the COVID-19 pandemic, a move to digitalisation facilitated an accelerating interest in digital applications, including immersive technologies such as augmented and virtual reality. This systematic literature review explores the intersecting topics of fashion, immersive technologies, and sustainability to determine the trends, examine the solutions offered, and discuss the implications of immersive technologies for sustainability. Four resources were consulted (Scholar, SCOPUS, WOS, and ProQuest), resulting in 74 articles for the review. Grey literature was included due to the currency of the topic and gaps in the available academic literature. The findings highlight immersive technology uses in the fashion industry, which are part of a move towards sustainability. These technologies are used to reduce online returns, educate consumers, reduce waste in design and manufacture, and remove the need for physical items. However, issues include high energy costs, consumer reluctance, and skill shortages. Results suggest future research and industry discussions should focus on empirical studies to measure the sustainability impact of immersive technologies, monitor technology diffusion and uptake, and measure the industry skills gap.

Changes in the fashion industry and consumer choices in the Portuguese context: Strategic directions

“…The trends related to sustainable fashion are focused, mainly, in the reduction of pollution caused precisely by fashion (Woodside & Fine, 2019), which leads companies towards the introduction of more transparency in their websites and promotional materials, considering that the sustainability concept is becoming increasingly important to the consumers. In the same line of thought, Mesjar, Cross, Jiang and Steed (2023) consider that companies should even try to educate consumers, thus raising their awareness levels regarding sustainable behaviors.…”

The Dual Strategy for Textile and Fashion Production Using Clothing Waste

“…In addition, the physical product, which is a single product, is expanded through various design variants along with its digital twin. What distinguishes this research from other studies that use 3D virtual digital technology to create fashion products [33][34][35][36][37][38][39][47][48][49][50][51] is that clothing waste material is used to solve the dual problem of waste disposal and product development using both physical and digital strategies simultaneously, which is the significance of this research. This study aims to increase the efficiency of clothing waste disposal and to achieve full circularity by connecting the steps from clothing disposal to material development to product production and providing an integrated discussion of how the simultaneous implementation of physical and digital strategies can be a positive and forward-looking alternative to clothing waste disposal.…”