Sustainability Joy2012
Sustainability Joy2012
Sustainability Joy2012
Annamma Joy, John F. Sherry Jr, Alladi Venkatesh, Jeff Wang & Ricky Chan
To cite this article: Annamma Joy, John F. Sherry Jr, Alladi Venkatesh, Jeff Wang & Ricky Chan
(2012) Fast Fashion, Sustainability, and the Ethical Appeal of Luxury Brands, Fashion Theory, 16:3,
273-295, DOI: 10.2752/175174112X13340749707123
Fast Fashion,
Sustainability, and
Annamma Joy, John the Ethical Appeal
of Luxury Brands
F. Sherry, Jr, Alladi
Venkatesh, Jeff Wang
and Ricky Chan
Introduction
Over the past decade, sustainability and ethical conduct have begun
to matter in fashion (Emberley 1998; Moisander and Personen 2002);
companies have realized that affordable and trend-sensitive fashion,
while typically highly profitable, also raises ethical issues (Aspers and
Skov 2006). How do today’s young consumers, so conscious of green
values, balance their continual need for ever-newer fashion with their
presumed commitment to environmental sustainability? In our research,
we ask how such consumers perceive fast fashion versus its luxury coun-
terpart, what sustainability actually means to them, and, based on our
findings, how the fashion industry can address sustainability.
sustainable policy for companies: “Respect for people (at all levels of
the organization), the community, and its supply chain; respect for the
planet, recognizing that resources are finite; and generating profits that
arise from adhering to these principles.” Organizations are embedded
in society, and reflect the value they offer society, which raises profound
issues. As Beard (2008: 448) states, “The difficulty (in the fashion in-
dustry) is to see how all the suppliers of the individual components can
be ethically secured and accounted for, together with the labour used to
manufacture the garment, its transport from factory to retail outlet, and
ultimately the garment’s aftercare and disposal.” With a global reach,
the fashion industry supply chain is highly fragmented and inherently
complex; as a result, fashion manufacturing is even less transparent
than agribusiness (Mihm 2010; Partridge 2011).
Avid consumers are now primed to browse fast fashion stores every
three weeks or so in search of new styles (Barnes and Lea-Greenwood
2006). According to a former Topshop brand director, “Girls see some-
thing and want it immediately.” The fast fashion industry—in com-
mon with the technology industry, which similarly produces a constant
stream of ever-improved, ever more alluring, products—exists courtesy
of such impulsive behavior, employing the planned obsolescence prac-
tices recently identified by Guiltinan (2009: 20): limited functional life
design and options for repair, design aesthetics that eventually lead to
reduced satisfaction, design for transient fashion, and design for func-
tional enhancement that requires adding new product features. Fashion,
more than any other industry in the world, embraces obsolescence as a
primary goal; fast fashion simply raises the stakes (Abrahamson 2011).
Young consumers’ desire for fast fashion is coupled with significant
disposable income (or, alternatively, the availability of credit). Fast
fashion exploits this segment, offering of-the-moment design and the
immediate gratification of continually evolving temporary identities—
a postmodern phenomenon (Bauman 2005). Fast fashion has been re-
ferred to as “McFashion,” because of the speed with which gratification
is provided. The framework is global, and the term “McFashion” is, to
a degree, appropriate. According to Ritzer (2011: 1), “‘McDonaldiza-
tion’ is a term that became fashionable in discussing changes in capital-
ist economies as they moved toward greater rationalization. Types of
production matter: manufacturing reliant on artisanal craft is a distinct
system, as are those of mass and more limited production.” “Craft”
denotes highly skilled labor, using simple tools to make unique items,
one item at a time, and accessible to only a select clientele. Hermes’ af-
fluent customers, for example, might wait for several years to acquire
a particular bag (Tungate 2009). With fast fashion, new styles swiftly
supersede the old, defining and sustaining constantly emerging desires
and notions of self. As Binkley (2008: 602) argues, the idea of “multiple
selves in evolution” is central to fast fashion lovers. Fast fashion re-
places exclusivity, glamour, originality, and luxury with “massclusivity”
and planned spontaneity (Toktali 2008).
Unsurprisingly, fast fashion chains in Europe have grown faster
than the retail fashion industry as a whole (Cachon and Swinney
2011; Mihm 2010): low cost, fresh design, and quick response times
allow for greater efficiency in meeting consumer demand. Fast fash-
ion chains typically earn higher profit margins—on average, a sizeable
16 percent—than their traditional fashion retail counterparts, who
average only 7 percent (Sull and Turconi 2008). Their success is in-
disputably significant. Consider the case of Zara, an exemplar of fast
fashion: the brand’s publicly held parent company, Inditex, operates
2,700 stores in more than sixty countries, and is valued at US$24 bil-
lion, with annual sales of $8 billion (Crofton and Dopico 2006: 41).
Fast Fashion, Sustainability, and the Ethical Appeal of Luxury Brands 277
In our study, we interviewed both male and female fast fashion consum-
ers aged between twenty and thirty-five in Hong Kong and Canada on
their own ideas of style and fashion, to highlight the issues involved in
their approach to consumption. Hong Kong is a long-time manufactur-
ing powerhouse in the fashion industry, home to at least one centenary
company: Li & Fung, a self-described “network orchestrator” (Mihm
2010: 59) founded in 1906, and now the largest outsourcing firm in
the world, linking to 83,000 suppliers worldwide (Fung et al., 2008).
Canada, by contrast, falls at the opposite end of the fashion industry
continuum, playing no major role. Unsurprisingly, given its potent lure,
fast fashion has taken root within Hong Kong’s and Canada’s respective
youth cultures with equal vitality.
278 Annamma Joy, John F. Sherry, Jr, Alladi Venkatesh, Jeff Wang and Ricky Chan
Table 1
List of participants.
Name Country Age Employment
Table 2
Images.
Fast Food
Flash Gordon (fast fashion)
Trends-Style (catwalk)
Pop Art (actress: Audrey Hepburn)
Kaleidoscope
A House on the Lake (water)
Plastic Vortex in the Ocean
Eco-fashion
Mona Lisa (face)
Exclusivity—Patek Philippe (wristwatches)
Chaumet Jewelry
Figure 1
Identity play and fast fashion.
282 Annamma Joy, John F. Sherry, Jr, Alladi Venkatesh, Jeff Wang and Ricky Chan
Linda, a Hong Kong student, noted: “Fast fashion (like Flash Gordon)
is moving at the speed of light, speeding up deliveries, and reinventing...
[itself] and...[its] designs as quickly as possible.” Clearly, time is of the
essence. As Dave, a thirty-five-year-old Canadian merchandiser, pointed
out, “Patience used to be a virtue. But nobody likes to be kept waiting.
Once consumers have seen the latest fashion shows, they want to own
the high-fashion item ASAP.”
The possibilities of endlessly defining the self are envisaged. Wendy,
a Hong Kong student, said: “Just recently I purchased a cocktail dress
for my friend’s wedding party. I saw a similar dress at Marc Jacobs—a
velvet beaded dress—but I bought this one at Zara for a fraction of
the price. It may not be premium quality, but it is a trendy piece and
very affordable!” The choice of that item was more than satisfactory,
so why spend more? Since the dress was available at Zara, it suggested
style. Nora, a Canadian shop floor assistant, commented: “The trendy
items allow me to update my wardrobe more regularly than before. If
the style is going to be dead in a year, why should I buy a piece that
Fast Fashion, Sustainability, and the Ethical Appeal of Luxury Brands 283
Disposability plays a key role, along with speed and style, in fast fash-
ion. Edith, a thirty-five-year-old Hong Kong consultant, said:
of which I may not even have worn more than once. I do feel guilty, but
I have a small apartment and I cannot keep them.” She rationalizes her
actions on the basis of limited space, but shows no attempt to reducing
her shopping sprees. Alexa, a Hong Kong teacher, took specific steps to
assuage her guilt: “I give all my clothes to my maid...she is always in
fashion after I’ve had my fill with these clothes. But at least I don’t feel
guilty. It is recycling!” Hong Kong has a recent history of bringing in
domestic workers from the Philippines, and, unsurprisingly, they have
a reputation for dressing well (Constable 2007). Catherine, a Canadian
office worker, noted, assessing an image she chose of escalators:
Of the thirty participants in both locales, only six talked overtly about
the societal downside of fast fashion. Cathy, an office worker in Hong
Kong, suggested: “It makes producers violate guidelines on the treat-
ment of workers, and break the laws on overtime. Even if the factory
owner is a good man and willing to pay workers legally, he cannot
control the working hours.” Jenny, a young Hong Kong fashion student
who is appalled at the waste and unsustainable practices, described how
she reuses her clothes: “I take bits and pieces from my old clothes [that
do not fit anymore or are not in style] and sew them together. It will
become a new piece of clothing that is in style and I can wear it for
another year.”
Fast Fashion, Sustainability, and the Ethical Appeal of Luxury Brands 285
they are just as boring as [those from] Gap. It is so out of sync with what
is happening now on the catwalks.” When we probed further, Paula, a
Canadian participant, said, “You need to get the designers weighing in
on this issue and using organic cotton and the proper dyes and so on.
If Marc Jacobs did it, we would all be buying these clothes.” Change
is possible, but it has to come from the fashion domain. Aesthetics is
crucial to the appeal of eco-fashion.
As noted above, participants cared greatly about sustainability, but
only as it related to food, recycling, and, in some cases, cosmetics (now
available containing organic ingredients). If consumers recognize the de-
mands that fast fashion makes on the environment, they seem to block
it from their consciousness (Joergens 2006). Aesthetics trump ethics, at
least for the time being. Niinimaki (2010) notes that, while ethical hard
liners are increasing in number, that number is still low.
Moreover, Niinimake argues, cost is far from the sole barrier to em-
bracing eco-fashion: style, quality, color, compatibility with one’s cur-
rent wardrobe, and an ongoing desire for new clothes—which means
valuing volume over ethical considerations—affect consumer purchase
decisions as well.
and shows to my close male friends that I am also able to buy luxury
products.” Patek Philippe, unlike Rolex, is not worn by a large number
of people in Hong Kong. It is a dream product, while Rolex is seen as
readily accessible. It takes knowledge to select a Patek Philippe watch;
this participant aspires to a look that is very cultivated.
The final theme of beauty, elegance, and art is important as well. Tanya,
a Hong Kong participant, commented: “Pearls give us a sense of luxury
because they are elegant, bright, luminous, expensive, and gloriously
beautiful. High fashion brands...make us look elegant.” Catherine (the
Canadian participant referenced earlier), linked luxury brands to art
and said: “I chose the picture of the Mona Lisa to represent the artistic
quality of haute couture. I associate it with the personalization of the
288 Annamma Joy, John F. Sherry, Jr, Alladi Venkatesh, Jeff Wang and Ricky Chan
c onsumer attitudes evolve, much as, to a degree, they have done with
food. Witness the ever-broadening acceptance accorded the artisanal
slow food movement.
Tellingly, Fletcher (2008) prefers to use the term “slow fashion”
rather than eco-fashion, arguing that “slow” in this context refers not
to time (as opposed to the “fast” in fast fashion, which most assuredly
does refer to time), but rather to a philosophy of attentiveness. As in the
slow food movement, that philosophy is mindful of its various stake-
holders’ respective needs (with “stakeholders” referring to designers,
buyers, retailers, and consumers), and of the impact producing fashion
has on workers, consumers, and eco-systems.
According to Bonini and Oppenheim (2008: 56) there are five barri-
ers to being green: “Lack of awareness, negative perceptions, distrust,
high prices, and low availability.” Trust was not an issue for our par-
ticipants, but style was. Prices and availability did not emerge as major
barriers in our discussions.
Although a shift in power from corporations to stakeholders has oc-
curred, accelerated by e-commerce and online activism (Scaturro 2008),
our participants in both Hong Kong and Canada seemed oblivious to
this shift. While they do take their brands seriously (as in fast fashion
and luxury), sustainable fashion brands are simply not on their radar—
or, at least, not yet. Even though Nike made the news for running sweat-
shop operations, our participants in Hong Kong and Canada did not
boycott the company’s products. In any event, Nike has since made
dramatic changes to its operations, pushing its way to the forefront of
sustainable fashion (Ramaswamy 2008).
Luxury brands are often tarred with the same brush as fast fashion
and other types of disposable fashion (Kapferer and Bastien 2009).
However, because of their long-standing concern for quality and
craft, luxury brands could effectively counteract some of the problems
endemic to fast fashion and provide leadership on issues relating to
sustainability. Some consumer researchers may refer to this as “ethi-
cal mainstreaming”—a process whereby consumers are willing to pay
a premium for such products (Thompson and Coskuner-Balli 2007:
137). According to these authors, this is another guise for bourgeois
consumerism—rather than question the system, such practices may well
be supporting the very system it purports to critique. We, on the other
hand, suggest that a luxury brand company can be both “green” and
“gold.” Blendell and Kleanthous (2007) provide provocative insight
into the meaning of “deeper luxury” to the consumer and producer.
Increasingly, they argue, the pursuit of luxury is linked to the brand’s
290 Annamma Joy, John F. Sherry, Jr, Alladi Venkatesh, Jeff Wang and Ricky Chan
While fast fashion companies can emulate luxury products, they may be
less able to match deeper elements of value, such as high ethical stan-
dards in sourcing, efficient use of material, low-impact manufacturing,
assembly, and distribution; and the availability of repair and upgrade
Fast Fashion, Sustainability, and the Ethical Appeal of Luxury Brands 291
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