Is sustainability and
ethical clothing
just a fad ?
Are sustainable and ethical clothing yet
another marketing scheme the industry
is trying to sell to consumers to appease
their conscience, or will it stand the test
of time?
The mass market present’s some reasons
to why sustainable and ethical fashion
could be seen as a fad, one of the reasons is the lack of care from consumers
as if it’s just the industry coming up with
another way to spend their money, in fact
just 8% of women selected “sustainable
clothing” when asked which factors are
important to them in choosing a retailer
for clothes (goody, 2016). This lack of
caring and understanding about sustainability and ethical fashion is because
there is no presence of these issues
when you walk into stores, in a primary
research interview with a consumer in
H&M they were asked “how much do you
know about H&M’s conscious collection”
and they replied “I don’t know anything
about it, all I know is it’s more expensive
than the rest of their ranges”, this seems
to be common opinion, because although
H&M are trying to make a difference by
offering more sustainable and ethical
clothing to customers they’re not making it a focal point in stores, this is why
it’s hard not to question if this is just a
passing fad for the international brand
because if they were serious about
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sustainability they would be trying to
convert customers into buying this way.
H&M aren’t the only ones guilty of this,
Zara has the same problem there is no
sight of their “Join Life” collection in
stores, this may be because pricing of
these items is well above their usual
pricing, because a normal white shirt
from them on average costs £25.99 but
from their sustainable and ethical
collection a white shirt costs £59.99
which won’t appeal to the mass market
consumer. However due to ageing population this pricing issue may be why we’re
seeing a rise in the sales of sustainably
and ethically sourced clothing, this
is because the older we get generally
the more expendable money we have to
spend, for instance in the U.S the segment of consumers over 55 is growing
faster than any other, both in terms of
their share of the population and their
expenditures in clothing (Keller.C,2014).
This is where businesses like monsoon
accessorize who provide for consumers
above 25, they have higher price points
than H&M, but with better quality. This
is another reason why sustainable and
ethical fashion won’t be just another
passing trend because as the population
is ageing, they will spend more on clothing to get better quality.