Fashion has major social, economic (each year more than ÂŁ20 billions of clothes make their way to landfill) and the environmental impact. One of the forms in which we express personality and social identity is fashion, that by determining what people wear affects their position within society than before (Hathorn & Ulewicz, 2008 ). As stated by Fletcher (2008): “it is at the very heart of how we fashion cultural identity in our time, satisfying needs for affection, originality and participation; enabling playtime rather than toil-time escape from workaday reality into leisure land. But a revision of the sector’s wasteful practices hints at a possible future: if all things change, fashion can be ecological-friendly-led in an endeavor to protect Mother Earth for our benefit. Such metamorphosis recalls we review our lascivious accounts with fashion, cutting down on impulsive buying and fostering greater attachment to textiles.
Fast Fashion
The phrase “fast fashion” refers to the quick cycle of making and selling clothes in today’s market. This involves producing inexpensive, easy-to-make garments for widespread sale and quick consumption (Clark, 2008). Over the last 25 years, the industry has concentrated on large-scale production and rapid sales, causing a move of textile manufacturing to countries with lower wages and fewer suppliers. This change reminds us to carefully manage our spending on trendy clothes, reducing impulsive purchases and developing a stronger connection to the fabrics we wear.
The phrase “fast fashion” refers to the quick cycle of making and selling clothes in today’s market. This involves producing inexpensive, easy-to-make garments for widespread sale and quick consumption (Clark, 2008). Over the last 25 years, the industry has concentrated on large-scale production and rapid sales, causing a move of textile manufacturing to countries with lower wages and fewer suppliers.
Strategies and Actions
To lessen the harmful effects of fashion production, efforts have mainly focused on changing how products are made. These strategies aim to improve the environmental impact of production by using sustainable materials and energy sources. (Armstrong and LeHew, 2011).Some people focus on marketing and distribution strategies, such as “eco chic” design, which tries to make consumers think a product is environmentally friendly while also looking good (Fletcher et al., 2001). But this method usually gives a too simple idea of sustainability, making people think they’re being responsible without really dealing with the bigger sustainability problems (Beard, 2008).
Programs like recycling fabrics and reusing clothes do help reduce pollution and waste from production, but they don’t change the large-scale manufacturing system that leads to overconsumption (Morgan and Birtwistle, 2009). The focus on sustainability in marketing is often just a passing trend, not a real effort to make changes (Horne, 2009). So, even though there have been some improvements in using resources more efficiently, the overall amount of production and consumption is still not sustainable, which cancels out the benefits of these technical improvements (Niinimäki and Hassi, 2011).
Needs, Satisfiers, and Economic Goods: Rethinking Consumption for Human Well-Being
While it is undeniable that the material impacts of excess consumption are environmentally unsustainable, the relationship between consumption and human well-being is largely misconceived both economically and socially (Soron 2010). Individuals’ well-being corresponds to the quality of their lives, which reflects the ways in which they experience their needs: people’s well-being is enhanced when their needs are adequately satisfied. Conversely, individual or collective well-being is undermined when many such needs remain unsatisfied. Conventional economics asserts that increased levels of well-being are harnessed through increased economic consumption, i.e. the purchasing of material goods produced in an economy (Jackson and Marks 1999). In recent decades, governments and development agencies have commonly accepted the theory that consumption increases well-being (Royo 2007). This has diverted sustainability policies and industry practices away from reducing consumption patterns, to improvements in technological resource efficiency (Briceno and Stagl 2006).
Mont and Plepys, 2008
Accordingly, consumers are assumed to maximize the utility, or benefit, from products by systematically reviewing their choices and acting in their best self-interest in response to price (Mont and Plepys, 2008). Because consumers are expected to make purchasing decisions regarding the complete assessment of the benefits and costs among alternatives, economic theory contends that well-being is best safeguarded by mechanisms of consumer choice in open markets. Thus, consumer preference for increasing consumption is deemed reliable to generate beneficial results and optimal aggregate outcomes, socially and environmentally (Jackson and Marks, 1999).
The resulting “matrix of needs” reflects how different experiential modes are required in the fulfillment of fundamental needs. Because the satisfaction of many needs is immaterial and non-monetary, the failure of commodities to satisfy these needs renders material gains insufficient as a means of improving human well-being (Shove and Warde 2002). In fact, recent empirical research frustrates the presumed equation between consumption and well-being. The “Easterlin Paradox,” a seminal theory in the economics of happiness, originally posited in 1974 that economic consumption does not necessarily lead to more satisfaction. The theory was corroborated in 2010 with data from 37 countries, affirming that income is not positively associated with greater life satisfaction and objective well-being (Easterlin et al. 2010). These results provide evidence supporting a “threshold hypothesis” suggesting that economic consumption delivers improved quality of life up to a certain point, but beyond that threshold, the environmental and social costs of increased consumption negatively impact environmental and human well-being (Max-Neef 1992).
Fashion, Needs, and Consumer Satisfaction
While clothing addresses our need for protection, fashion connects with our emotional expression and links us to a distinct time and space. Clothing is material; fashion is symbolic, taking form either as an object (noun) or instance of creation (verb). Where fashion and clothing coincide, emotional needs are expressed as garments (Hethorn and Ulasewicz 2008). Fashion clothes can foster our needs for affection, identity, participation, leisure, creation, and freedom. However, as these emotional and psychological needs are satisfied through the interaction of internal and external means, clothing consumption alone cannot adequately fulfill them (Fletcher 2008).
The challenge now is to find ways to celebrate fashion as a significant part of our culture while divorcing it from rampant material consumption. Truly sustainable fashion must address the emotional, expressive, and physical qualities clothing provides to sustain both environmental and human well-being (Fletcher 2008). Fashion has the potential to influence consumer behavior and promote sustainable consumption through needs-based design strategies. However, research in sustainable fashion often overlooks these strategies and lacks empirical data from a design perspective (Niinimäki & Hassi, 2011). By aligning design with individual needs, garment qualities can be enhanced to affect how clothing impacts well-being (Hethorn & Ulasewicz, 2008). From this emerges clothing that is more resilient in both style and lifespan, providing powerful alternatives to fast retail turnover and more sustainable ways of being fashionable (Laitala and Boks 2012).
Methodology
I surveyed 150 18–25-year-old individuals to document consumers’ clothing shopping, purchasing, use, and disposal behavior and how garment qualities, social and psychological mechanisms, and forms of needs-satisfaction affect these practices. I chose for my study individuals 18 to 25 years old, based upon unanimous research findings that young consumers tend to be the most fashion savvy and aware of new trends (Deutsch and Theodorou 2010). I distributed the link to the online survey through Facebook, targeting college students and group affiliations with diverse interests and backgrounds.
The survey’s first section explored respondents’ clothing usage, disposal habits, and purchasing frequency across various garment types. By comparing the number of garments owned to those worn in the last six months, I assessed personal clothing waste—the unused portion of their wardrobe.I also asked how frequently they shop for clothing in general and at which stores they shop most frequently to determine the extent to which they were habituated to fast fashion. For affection, they indicated how often they buy clothes to feel attractive; for identity, how important clothing is to their public image. Participation was assessed by asking about their preference for varied styles, while leisure focused on shopping as a recreational activity. Lastly, creation was distinguished by how often they purchase unique or unconventional items.
Conclusion
Buying clothing has now become a social norm, supported and legitimized by a fashion system that encourages shopping for clothing in order satisfy needs- needs that are more emotional than material. A sustainable model of fashion design relates less to design as a creator of clothing and more to design as a promoter of social change through influencing greater attachment to the wearing of garments while breaking the bond of fashion to consumerism: clothing designed to support conscious choice and personal involvement rather than to induce blind consumption. Importantly, it is not a trend: it is a different paradigm interested in transformative actions that award us with skills, products, relationships, and experiences that satisfy environmental and human well-being.