Fashion Theory· 2012Q1
Fast Fashion, Sustainability, and the Ethical Appeal of Luxury Brands
- 919citations
- Q1SCImago
- 2012year
Short summary
This paper hypothesizes that actual luxury brands, emphasizing authenticity and quality, can paradoxically unite fashion ideals with environmental sustainability, contrasting with fast fashion's unsustainable practices.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Key points
- Fast fashion mimics luxury trends but is inherently unsustainable.
- Consumers often exhibit a dissonance between environmental concerns and fast fashion consumption.
- Actual luxury brands may foster values of quality and sustainability.
- Luxury brands could unite fashion ideals with environmental sustainability.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Abstract
The phrase “fast fashion” refers to low-cost clothing collections that mimic current luxury fashion trends. Fast fashion helps sate deeply held desires among young consumers in the industrialized world for luxury fashion, even as it embodies unsustainability. Trends run their course with lightning speed, with today's latest styles swiftly trumping yesterday's, which have already been consigned to the trash bin. This article addresses the inherent dissonance among fast fashion consumers, who often share a concern for environmental issues even as they indulge in consumer patterns antithetical to ecological best practices. Seemingly adept at compartmentalism, and free of conflicted guilt, such consumers see no contradiction in their Janus-faced desires. Can luxury fashion, with ostensibly an emphasis on authenticity, and its concomitant respect for artisans and the environment, foster values of both quality and sustainability? Since individual identity continually evolves, and requires a materially referential re-imagining of self to do so, we hypothesize that actual rather than faux luxury brands can, ironically, unite the ideals of fashion with those of environmental sustainability.
The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Fashion Theory, 2012 · DOI ↗
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Field: Museology
MuseologyArts and Humanities