Why Responsible Fashion Hasn’t Quite Taken Off Yet, According to Users
Responsible fashion is still a somewhat taboo topic.
We like to avoid it, not because we disagree with the concept at all, but because we are all guilty of ‘feeding the problem’ with a quick trip to H&M every so often, or an innocent browse on your favourite fast-fashion website.
Even with the best intentions, every so often we find ourselves drifting back to the familiar, budget-friendly and convenient world of Primark.
Even if you’re conscious of issues around fast fashion and make an effort to shop more responsibly, likelihood is that you still shop at fast fashion stores, whether infrequently or multiple times per month. It’s hard to find someone who manages to completely avoid shopping for fast fashion unless they either have a lot of disposable income and can afford the high price tags of many ‘sustainable’ brands, or shop entirely second-hand. Even then, where do they get their underwear from?
The project
Last month, I decided to combine my interest in responsible fashion with my interest in UX. I’m currently studying the Interaction Design Foundation’s ‘User Research: Methods and Best Practices’ course, and part of the course involves carrying out your own user interviews along with a thematic analysis to draw insights.
I chose to focus the study around the question, ‘How do people make conscious decisions to shop for fashion responsibly?’.
Before I started the research, I knew that the answer(s) to this question wouldn’t be black and white. Fashion is, for many people, a very personal topic and buying decisions often stem from intrinsic, sub-conscious factors including body image and social pressure (including social media and influencers).
What I set out to discover
I wanted to…
- Find out how people make conscious decisions to shop responsibly
- What people consider to be ‘responsible’
- What are the decision factors involved in shopping responsibly?
- What is most important to consumers?
The research
Via Zoom, of course, I set out to interview my participants. I drafted a set of open-ended questions but kept the interviews semi-structured so I could delve deeper into certain details of experiences that participants could offer. I didn’t take any notes during the interviews, as I wanted to remain fully immersed and treat it like a conversation. I instead recorded the audio and transcribed the interviews later.
The participants I interviewed varied from exclusively shopping second-hand to having never shopped responsibly before. This was great for getting a holistic view of what motivates people to shop.
Extracting the insights & interpretations
Starting by generating some initial codes (these are a brief description of what is being said or done), I looked for as many potentially interesting themes as possible. I split the codes up into: brands (including whether they were spoken about positively or negatively), positive and negative experiences, behaviours, and deciding factors.
Once all the interview transcripts had been coded, I started grouping each coded extract into themes. While coding, I had already jotted down some ideas for themes as I went along. Creating themes was an iterative process — sometimes, I started developing one theme before realising that the codes were a better fit for another, or that two themes could be merged into one. Eventually, I realised that I was actually developing a set of deciding factors for shopping for fashion responsibly.
The final themes were:
- Convenience & Practicality
- Financial Means
- Seld-Esteem & Body Image
- Moral Compass
- Availability of Information & Reputation
- Quality
The results
I noticed that these themes all overlapped in some way, and the best way to display them would be using a diagram, as shown below.
This diagram displays, what I have found to be, the 6 key decision-making factors when shopping for clothes, and what can tip the scales when deciding to buy responsibly, or not.
What’s key here is that there is almost always a trade-off to consider, whether it’s trading the low prices for higher quality, or the convenience of fast fashion for sustainable clothing. What responsible fashion companies need to work towards is having that trade-off work in their favour, however it will definitely take a universal change of mindset for society to move away from ‘quantity of quality’.
#1 Factor — Convenience & Practicality
Convenience and practicality came out on top because users often stated that it was difficult to shop responsibly due to responsible fashion not being so readily-available as the alternative, especially when it comes to buying basics such as t-shirts and socks.
This only confirms society’s ever-increasing demand for finding and receiving a product or information as fast as possible, with as little effort as possible. We experience this need on a daily basis — think about the last time you had to wait more than 3 seconds for a webpage to load. It makes you frustrated! Amazon introduced their Prime service to feed into this demand, delivering our products sometimes even on the same day that we ordered them.
The issue for responsible fashion companies is that responsible shopping takes extra time, research and energy. They’re not as prominent as mainstream fashion brands, and so take some digging out, and it can also be difficult to find specific items from a responsible brand as oppose to a mainstream brand. As one interview participant said:
You hear the way Sports Direct’s staff have been treated and their health and safety protocols aren’t in place. Then you think “but where am I going to get my shin pads from?” You kind of have to weigh up the practicalities vs. your own feelings towards it.
However, users appear to be more likely to take these extra steps if they’re looking for something more expensive, such as a durable winter coat or a pair of leather boots. When it comes to basics, it doesn’t seem worthwhile to make the extra effort.
In my opinion, the issue here is less with the consumer than it is with the fashion brands involved. Fast fashion brands have created a well-oiled machine, allowing them to churn out huge volumes across an extensive inventory of products. They’re designed as ‘one-stop shops’.
Financial Means
Financial means is a close-second to convenience and practicality. This is, of course, dependent on the individual and their circumstances.
Users do appear to understand the correlation between price and quality (namely, the higher the price, the better they expect the quality to be), but that doesn’t seem to be enough to sway some from choosing a ‘bargain’ over an investment. Responsible companies have to compete with fast fashion prices, while offering what is essentially an entirely different product.
Responsible fashion costs a lot more to produce, as materials are higher quality and their staff are paid a fair, living wage. They don’t cut corners to increase profit margins. See my last article on the true cost of fast fashion for a more in-depth look at this.
Some consumers do see their wardrobe as an investment, and find they get a lot more use out of more expensive items. However, these individuals usually have a lot more disposable income.
Primark is targeting the insecure working class woman.
Self-Esteem & Body Image
By this, I’m referring to ‘the confidence (or lack of) one feels when shopping for clothes or when interacting with a social group in regards to physical appearance’. Depending on the age and circumstances of a user, this does appear to play a large part in deciding to shop for fast fashion.
Impulse-buying is often driven by influencer culture on Instagram, which tells us that we shouldn’t be seen in the same outfit and should always have a new outfit for nights out or an Instagram picture. Influencers are also often sponsored by fast fashion brands to promote their clothes to their young audience, one of today’s most effective marketing strategies available.
They have essentially built large followings of engaged young people who strive to look or be like these influencers, in order to feel accepted or improve their self-confidence. We’ve always had role models, or people we look up to, and this is today’s version of that. Most of their audience don’t have the budget to buy new, responsible clothes regularly to keep up with this constant need for fresh outfits, and so it makes more sense to buy cheaper ‘wear once’ pieces, which can be replaced easily.
It’s also important to note that influencer culture plays a large role in developing and promoting new fashion trends. Responsible companies are less likely to offer on-trend pieces as they have a much slower supply chain. It takes time to design and produce high quality sustainable fashion, whereas fast fashion companies, such as Fashion Nova, are known for spotting Kim Kardashian’s dress on the red carpet and creating a dupe ready for sale overnight. In comparison, in 1975 it took approximately 22 months from design to a finished garment. Today, brands are able to cut corners in order to release new products at lightning speed.
Moral Compass
Your ‘moral compass’ refers to the conscious or unconscious feelings about the morality of your shopping choices prior to, during or after shopping. Some users choose to shop less responsibly in return for more convenience or cheaper options, but do understand that there is a moral trade-off in doing so. One interview participant even mentioned having a ‘feeling of guilt’ when shopping in high street stores.
There is a balance, however, between feeling guilt for those affected by the fast fashion supply chain, or a more internalised guilt that comes from looking inward. What does it say about you that you make these shopping choices? This does seem to play on the minds of many fashion consumers — potentially much more than we think!
Availability of Information and Reputation
This theme refers to being able to find information on a company’s responsibility easily, alongside their public reputation through social media, reviews and on the news.
According to the results of my study, it appears that users expect information on a company’s social and environmental responsibility to be readily available and even prominent on their website. Some users may do some further research and look at their about page and product descriptions, but generally speaking, it’s expected that they will be ‘shouting about it’.
It’s also apparent that brand loyalty can quickly fall apart for some if bad press were to emerge about a company and their social or environmental responsibility. On the other hand, if the individual’s preferences and/or circumstances tip the scale enough, the trade-off doesn’t seem appealing enough for some to move away from a company they have been a loyal customer to. For example, Boohoo was outed in July last year for paying their garment workers less than minimum wage and using slave labour. Even though they lost loyal customers, they’re still one of the most profitable and popular fast fashion brands on the internet today.
Quality
Finally, ‘quality’ refers to the quality of material, durability and life span, whether the items are true-to-size and overall fit.
It probably comes as no surprise that it’s easier to judge an item’s quality when shopping in-person as we have the benefits of touch and sight (instead of touched up photographs on a screen). However, I don’t think many of us have bought clothes in-store since the beginning of 2020 for obvious reasons!
Consumers are now ordering much more online, and it’s much more difficult to judge quality through a screen.
Some fast fashion items are so cheap (see Pretty Little Thing’s 8p sale on Black Friday), that they’re not even worth the effort of returning if found to be less than adequate or don’t fit correctly. They’ll instead simply be banished to the back of the closet forever.
There is a demand for high quality clothing, as all interview participants stated that they want products that will last longer and that they can get more use of. However, the trade-off just isn’t strong enough yet to sway a lot of people away from the ease and cheapness of shopping fast fashion.
To conclude…
The 6 decision factors I have outlined are only based on one study, however do back up the data of other studies and surveys I’ve carried out on this topic. They also fit together like a jigsaw — each factor seems to work with an other, whether it’s in collaboration or against it.
It’s important to note, although I have mentioned already, that individual circumstances play a huge part in the trade-off someone is willing to make, and when the scales will tip in favour of responsible shopping.
Responsible brands have a difficult battle to fight. Not only are they competing against high-street brands, but they’re also competing against social media, influencer culture, and the mindset of an entire generation. It’s not just about making the choice to shop responsibly, it’s about creating an entire mindset shift, a movement, across society.
We have a long way to go before unethical practice in the fashion industry is a thing of the past.
