Being sustainable while being fashionable in clothing industry: Exploring the potential integration of Sustainable Fashion Products and Collaborative Fashion Consumption Services

Abstract

Fashion industry being the second most polluting industry has received a considerable attention towards sustainability. As the fashion industry is a demand-driven industry, the authors have recently suggested to shift the focus from the production end to the consumer end of the industry for a sustainable future. However, the current market offerings in the sustainable fashion industry demand the consumers to compromise with style, design, trends, or price which makes it difficult for the consumers to find a balance of perceived cost and benefit. Thus, with the help of desk research and exploratory primary research, this thesis finds an alternative to minimize the perceived cost of sustainable fashion and proposes a model with which consumers might find a greater cost-benefit balance in the sustainable fashion industry.This provides an alternative to be sustainable and fashionable at the same time. Preface II Disclaimer III 1 Introduction 1.1 Background 1.2 Problem Statement and Research Question 1.3 Thesis Disposition 1.4 Thesis Contribution 2 Literature Review 2.1 The Fashion Industry 2.1.1 Fast Fashion 2.2 Sustainable consumption in the fashion industry 2.3 Closed-loop circular economy in the fashion industry 2.4 The Sustainable fashion Product Industry 2.4.1 Recycled and Upcycled fashion products 2.4.2 Drivers for indulging in sustainable clothing products 2.4.3 Barriers for indulging in sustainable clothing products 2.5 The Collaborative Fashion Consumption (CFC) Industry 2.5.1 Rental and Subscription-based-rental fashion services 2.5.2 Collaborative fashion consumption (CFC) as a sustainable consumption model 16 2.5.3 Drivers for indulging in CFC services 2.5.4 Barriers for indulging in CFC services 2.6 Theory of individually perceived cost-benefits balance 3 Proposed Conceptual Operational Model 4 Methodology 4.1 Research design and approach 4.1.1 Theory-based conceptual framework 4.