project proposal

I want to propose an investigation of how art appropriation has manifested in the last ten years. The use of pre-existing work as a way that artists can derive inspiration from, with little transformation, is especially unique to the world of art. I want to analyze in what ways appropriation has become a driving force for artists, the limitations of ownership, and the ways in which the repurposing of artwork can provide a space for both innovation and criticism. Krzysztof Wodiczko, a Polish conceptual artist was recently featured in the New York Times, manipulated memorials around the world, to facilitate a new way of thinking, “making monuments into megaphones for the powerless in society” (Sheets). Ursula Anna Frohne writes, “‘The cult of the original’, once mandatory for the formation of Western art, has been consequently transformed by recordings of culturally accepted visual formulas” (Baselitz). I question arts ability to glorify forgery and theft as a driving force for creativity, and how definitions of such an operation has developed based on various artists and work that has come to light. Criticism lies where plagiarism meets appropriation, where an artist work becomes another piece entirely. In a digital age, borrowing has become that much more accessible, and artists are no longer limited to the work they come across, but effectively can draw from all corners of the artistic world. An artist becomes scrutinized when their creativity comes into question, having their template be another artists work, rather than their own initial impression. Does considering changing how a work is presented change the essence of its meaning, and in what ways can that be presented as just as noteworthy as the original maker? How has the appropriation of art effected various effected the fiscal stability and disparity in art of various cultures and regions? In other words, how has the use of borrowing art allowed for different cultures and different minority groups to be featured and how has this further changed the world of art entirely?

I hope to investigate some of these questions through primary sources, scholarly articles, and case studies on the effect of artist appropriation in certain areas and societies. The primary sources that I will include are pieces of artwork that best exemplify appropriation as its own art form. I hope to further do a digital representation of the various instances where appropriation has become a platform for success through virtual tours.  I plan to draw on archival materials in art databases, including various art museum websites. Regarding secondary sources and scholarly articles, I will draw on criticisms that work to investigate how appropriation has transformed, the types of artists most renowned for their exploration in borrowing and repurposing of art, and how the art industry views repurposing pre-existing works of art.

I think investigating this topic as a Digital Humanities project, provides a platform to recognize the intricacies of representation, how ownership has evolved within a digital sphere, and how these digital tools and methods can be a platform to enhance appropriation within the arts. There is a fine line that we all face when reintroducing already explored ideas and pieces of scholarly work, as your own stance. There is an anxiety to insure your own unique opinion and position is your own. Though, by purposefully exploring the way plagiarism can drive creativity, there develops a paradox between the content and what its platform represents. I think this could be fascinating to consider in what ways has our society been stricken by fears of theft and stealing, and how artists have been able to instead prove it to be ingenious and instead original. This project is viable because art is accessible, and allows for audiences of all backgrounds to enter such a space of inquiry. My greatest challenge I predict is the magnitude of artwork that can be considered repurposed or borrowed, as well as determining what success looks like with relation to an artist’s popularity and prominence.

Bibliography:

“A Break in Transmission: Art, Appropriation and Accumulation.” Avoiding the Subject: Media, Culture and the Object, by Justin Clemens and Dominic Pettman, Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam, 2004, pp. 23–36. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46n1c6.5. Accessed 27 Jan. 2020.

Beidelman, T. O. “Authenticity and Appropriation.” African Arts, vol. 25, no. 3, 1992, pp. 24–26. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3336992. Accessed 27 Jan. 2020.

Baselitz, Georg, et al. “NOTES FROM THE FIELD: Appropriation: Back Then, In Between, and Today.” The Art Bulletin, vol. 94, no. 2, 2012, pp. 166–186. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/23268310. Accessed 27 Jan. 2020.

Linden, Liz. “Reframing Pictures: Reading the Art of Appropriation.” Art Journal, vol. 75, no. 4, 2016, pp. 40–57. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/45142821. Accessed 27 Jan. 2020.

McKervey, Henri, and Declan Long. “Makers and Takers: Art and the Appropriation of Ideas.” Circa, no. 101, 2002, pp. 32–35. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/25563844. Accessed 27 Jan. 2020.

Sheets, Hilarie M. “A Monument Man Gives Memorials New Stories to Tell.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 23 Jan. 2020, www.nytimes.com/2020/01/23/arts/design/Krzysztof-Wodiczko.html.

What are you doing & why?

According to The Bureau of Independent Journalism, as many as 1,060 people were killed by drones in Afghanistan in 2018. Of those killed, as few as 92 or as many as 163 were civilians (Serle, Purkiss). That the brutal deaths of innocent people are routine features of the U.S. counterterrorism program seems an immutable fact that at best exists outside of everyday awareness and at worst is known generally but unchallenged. In my project, I intend to explore the question of how sight in all its forms – visibility, obscurity, awareness, ignorance, presence, absence – is weaponized by the U.S. drone program which (1) exposes communities where airstrikes are carried out against jihadist militants to constant surveillance while (2) minimizing the loss of innocent lives inextricably tied to the program. When I say “minimize,” I am not arguing that civilian deaths are hidden, rather that the continuation of the drone program indicates their presence is not the priority. Civilians caught in the destructive gaze of drones are rarely the point of view.

This interactive project has two parts that work in concert, presented through Twine. The primary text will be an analytical report presenting the claim that the drone program weaponizes point of view, communicated through 20 web pages of short text including data and quotations from the intelligence community, the government, experts and academics, and from the point of view often missing from official discourse: the civilians who live under the constant threat of airstrikes. Within each of the 20 analysis pages will be a prompt linking the user to a scenario page that puts them in the perspective of a person in the chain of command deciding whether to approve or oppose a targeted killing. An example of a scenario page appears below.   

“Submitted for your approval: Intelligence sources in the area report a target suspected to manage communications between members of a militant group is hiding in a village 156 miles from a U.S. base. This targeted strike could save the agency $14,000 that would otherwise go toward capturing the target alive. Our sources in the C.I.A. tell us that it is doubtful the target has any useful information. What will you do?”

(1) Approve strike OR (2) Call off strike

After making their decision, the user will be presented with the data: how many militants versus civilians killed, tradeoff of money lost or saved, or intelligence opportunities lost or saved. Scenarios may be based off reported strikes, and that information will appear on the results page following the decision. While the user will not be playacting the actual decision leading to the loss of innocent life, the scenarios will necessitate that the user evaluates whether their choice is justified. The result screen will include a link that takes the reader back to the page of the report, allowing them to click and progress to the next analysis page. The project’s aim is presenting information that is publicly available but is not public knowledge in a way that raises questions about the reader’s agency and participation – as taxpayer or bystander – in the U.S. global counterterrorism program.

Sources

A foundational source will be the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, an independent organization which has an ongoing project tracking civilian casualties (CIVCAS) from drone strikes in Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, and Pakistan. Data from the Bureau will be the basis for claims made in the analytical report as well as the basis for the interactive scenarios. Other investigative sources compiling drone CIVCAS data may be included, namely New America Foundation, which covers U.S. airstrikes in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia and the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies’ Long War Journal, which tracks airstrikes in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and Libya. Before use, data from the Bureau and other investigative sources will be compared to the annual Department of Defense civilian casualties (CIVCAS) report, and all numbers will be reported where there is a discrepancy.

Other important sources will be The Intercept’s Drone Papers reporting project, which includes useful explanations of military terminology for drone airstrikes. Another potential source will be Reprieve, a human-rights organization that records the stories of civilians caught in the crossfire of global counterterrorism. The analytical report may also draw from other journalistic sources to help frame how the conversation about drones and CIVCAS has developed since the program’s inception.

Scholarly sources will be especially relevant for the analytical report, notably chapter eight of Johnathan Beller’s 2018 book The Message is Murder: Substrates of Computational Capital, entitled “Prosthetics of Whiteness: Drone Psychosis.” Beller argues the automated decision-making process of the drone “effectively cuts the “human” decision making out of the equation through its own autonomous operation,” a question of autonomy that the interactive portion of the project will explore (143). Another possible scholarly source will be Grégoire Chamayou and Janet Lloyd’s A Theory of the Drone, which asserts that the development and deployment of the hunter-killer drone is the history of an eye “turned into a weapon” (Chamayou, Lloyd 11).  All sources will be credited following MLA format and will be linked individually to a bibliography page that will, where possible, take the reader directly to an online source.

Strengths & Challenges

One strength of this project is that the information easy to access. There is a robust community dedicated to making information around drones and CIVCAS public. Additionally, the visual medium of Twine should be an appropriate platform for illustrating the project’s theme of weaponized sight. The inclusion of Twine could also be a challenge considering my inexperience. However, mastering all Twine’s features will not be necessary, since the project will be interactive but relatively linear with little need for any complexity beyond appropriate transitions between links. Giving the reader enough agency in the experience so that the project is not just a slide show essay is also a potential challenge. Perhaps the greatest difficulty will be presenting an uncompromising look at the U.S. drone program and its effects without gamifying the experience. While the drone’s uncanny kinship with the modern first-person shooter videogame should be a parallel of which we are aware and uncomfortable, the purpose of this project is not to trivialize targeted killings done in the name of counterterrorism. Placing the user in the decision-making seat is only the first step; the rest of the experience of conveying the information in a form that is serious, respectful, and engaging will be an ongoing challenge.

A note on content warnings:

Respecting the victims of targeted killings as well as the differing levels of tolerance for descriptions of violence within the audience is a priority. Graphic descriptions of the targeted killings will not appear in the analysis or scenarios, and the introduction page of the project will include a content warning for the discussion (not depiction) of the deaths of adults and children. The content warning will also extend to the links included in the bibliography, where it will be emphasized that the sources may include graphic content.

Bibliography:

Beller, Johnathan. The Message is Murder: Substrates of Computational Capital. E-book,Pluto Press, 2017. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=1810514&site=ehost-live.

Chamayou, Grégoire. A Theory of the Drone. 2013. Translated by Janet Lloyd, E-book, The New Press, 2015. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=891716&site=ehost-live.

“Drones and Assassinations.” Reprieve, reprieve.org.uk/topic/drones/

Serle, Jack, and Jessica Purkiss. “Drone Wars: The Full Data.” Bureau of Investigative Journalism, 1 January 2017, www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2017-01-01/drone-wars-the-full-data.

Scahill, Jeremy, et al. The Drone Papers. The Intercept, 15 October 2015, theintercept.com/drone-papers.

“U.S. Airstrikes in the Long War.” Long War Journal, www.longwarjournal.org/us-airstrikes-in-the-long-war.

PLEDGE

Grace Hall

Project Proposal

26 Jan 2020

What Should I Do With All My Clothes?: A Study of Fast Fashion and Its Global Impact

            With the rise of social media, there has become an increased need for fast fashion brands. Instead of wearing our clothes multiple times, people are more likely to wear a dress once and post a picture in it. Then, because the dress has already been seen, they leave it in their closet collecting dust until its either given away or thrown away. This need for new looks and Instagram’s fancy new ability to buy clothes directly from the app, make consuming cheap clothing easier than ever. But what are the costs of this new form of consumerism? The fast fashion movement has emphasized the customer without regarding the garment being made. Fast fashion companies are under severe scrutiny from both sustainability organizations and human rights protection organizations. While they produce cheap clothes for customers, they make clothes and accessories with fabrics that cannot be recycled, they are made by people who are not paid a living wage, and they are transported internationally unsustainably. This is a hard issue to combat, because to be able to make real change you have to ask consumers to spend more money one clothes and go against fashion norms of wearing the same things more frequently. I believe the general public is not aware of the true environmental and human impact of fast fashion. Thus, my hypothesis is that if more people were aware of the true negative impacts of the fast fashion industry, sustainable fashion brands would be more popular, and people would be more willing to be sustainable consumers. My goal is to create an interactive project that brings awareness to the need for the sustainable fashion industry. I will do this by creating an interactive world map. A user will be able to select one of four garments or accessories, and then starting with the production of the textiles, the user will be able to follow the creation, transportation, and selling of the garment across a world map. With each step there will be a small explanation of what is wrong for the environment or the people making the item to bring awareness to the issues. At the end of the cycle the user will be asked on average how long someone keeps that garment and what they do with it when they decide to remove it from their closet. Hopefully the information from this interactive map will help users understand the importance of supporting sustainable fashion brands and the sustainability movement in general.

            Recently, many scholars have been writing about the benefits of sustainable fashion and social entrepreneurship as ways to combat this issue. I will be mainly pulling from sources found in academic journals or books, accessed through the Davidson library. Many companies fear moving to a “values-driven industry” comes from their worry of “financial uncertainty” (Batist). But many companies are starting in employ intrapreneurs, people who work within a company to bring change (like a sustainability initiative, for example), rather than starting a new company from scratch. Scholars like Henninger study the success of the slow fashion movement, the response to the unsustainable growth of the fast fashion market. Henninger finds that the concept of sustainable fashion is subjective to both the brand and the buyer, making it hard to define but also broad enough to apply to a vast audience. Niinimaki explores the ethical foundations of sustainable fashion, asking what ethics all brands must follow and what ethics are up to interpretation. There is enough scholarly research on this topic to be able to put together a comprehensive research project.

            This is not an easy project proposal. I do not have vast experience with web design or interactive website creation, making the work more extensive because there will be a research component too. There is a possibility that this project will not attract many viewers on its own, but if I feel it is a successful project, I will send it to organizations like the Fashion Transparency Index and Good on You (in hopes that they will promote it!). Both of those organizations judge the sustainability of fashion brands, but their grading systems are very different. They both have large social media followings, showing that there is an interested group who cares about this issue as much as I do. This is a problem worth working on, I feel the project will be finished when it helps change people’s fashion consumption habits, even if that just means making someone think twice before purchasing something from Forever21, for example. I am interested because I, a fashion-conscious college student addicted to social media, am the perfect target for the fast fashion industry, and I know how truly easy it is to get suck. But, there is a point where we as humans need to take responsibility and acknowledge that there are more ways that we can help save the environment than just using metal straws. Time to practice what we preach!

Bibliography:

Batist, Danielle. Incentivizing Sustainable Fashion: Lessons From Social Entrepreneurs. 28 Feb. 2017, https://www.forbes.com/sites/ashoka/2017/02/28/incentivizing-sustainable-fashion-lessons-from-social-entrepreneurs/#1a7a66227d3e.

Bly, Sarah, et al. “Exit from the High Street: An Exploratory Study of Sustainable Fashion Consumption Pioneers.”International Journal of Consumer Studies, vol. 39, no. 2, 2015, pp. 125–135. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.1111/ijcs.12159.

—. “Exit from the High Street: An Exploratory Study of Sustainable Fashion Consumption Pioneers.” International Journal of Consumer Studies, vol. 39, no. 2, 2015, pp. 125–35. Wiley Online Library, doi:10.1111/ijcs.12159.

Choi, Tsan-Ming, and T. C. Edwin Cheng. Sustainable Fashion Supply Chain Management From Sourcing to Retailing. Springer International Publishing, 2015.

D’Anolfo, Marco, et al. “Luxury, Sustainability, and Corporate Social Responsibility: Insights from Fashion Luxury Case Studies and Consumers’ Perceptions.” Sustainable Management of Luxury, edited by Miguel Angel Gardetti, Springer, 2017, pp. 427–48. Springer Link, doi:10.1007/978-981-10-2917-2_20.

Gardetti, Miguel Angel, and Rachida Justo. “Sustainable Luxury Fashion: The Entrepreneurs’ Vision.” Sustainable Management of Luxury, edited by Miguel Angel Gardetti, Springer, 2017, pp. 347–60. Springer Link, doi:10.1007/978-981-10-2917-2_16.

Giacosa, Elisa. “The Family Business Phenomenon as a Means for a Sustainable Business in the Clothing Luxury Business.” Sustainable Management of Luxury, edited by Miguel Angel Gardetti, Springer, 2017, pp. 361–85. Springer Link, doi:10.1007/978-981-10-2917-2_17.

Glausiusz, Josie. “Sustainable Fashion.” Nature, vol. 459, no. 7249, 2009, p. 915. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.1038/459915a.

Henninger, Claudia E., et al. “What Is Sustainable Fashion?” Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management; Bradford, vol. 20, no. 4, 2016, pp. 400–16. ProQuest, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/JFMM-07-2015-0052.

Muthu, Subramanian Senthilkannan. Textiles and Clothing Sustainability Sustainable Fashion and Consumption. Springer Singapore, 2017.

Niinimäki, Kirsi. “Ethical Foundations in Sustainable Fashion.” Textiles and Clothing Sustainability, vol. 1, no. 1, 2015, pp. 1–11. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.1186/s40689-015-0002-1.

—. “Ethical Foundations in Sustainable Fashion.” Textiles and Clothing Sustainability, vol. 1, no. 1, Dec. 2015, p. 3. DOI.org (Crossref), doi:10.1186/s40689-015-0002-1.

Park, Hyejune, and Youn-kyung Kim. “An Empirical Test of the Triple Bottom Line of Customer-Centric Sustainability: The Case of Fast Fashion.” Fashion and Textiles; Heidelberg, vol. 3, no. 1, Dec. 2016, pp. 1–18. ProQuest, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40691-016-0077-6.

Perkins, Lewis. “Running Circles Around Unsustainable Textile Practices.” WWD: Women’s Wear Daily; Los Angeles, vol. 211, no. 25, June 2016, p. 66.

Shen, Bin. “Sustainable Fashion Supply Chain: Lessons from H&M.” Sustainability, vol. 6, no. 9, 2014, pp. 6236–6249. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.3390/su6096236.

Shilpa, V., and C. Madhavaiah. “Luxury Fashion Goods and Sustainable Consumption Behaviour.” Journal of Marketing Vistas; Hyderabad, vol. 7, no. 2, Dec. 2017, pp. 60–66.

Turker, Duygu, and Ceren Altuntas. “Sustainable Supply Chain Management in the Fast Fashion Industry: An Analysis of Corporate Reports.” European Management Journal; Oxford, vol. 32, no. 5, Oct. 2014, p. 837.

Grace Hall

Project Proposal

26 Jan 2020

What Should I Do With All My Clothes?: A Study of Fast Fashion and Its Global Impact

            With the rise of social media, there has become an increased need for fast fashion brands. Instead of wearing our clothes multiple times, people are more likely to wear a dress once and post a picture in it. Then, because the dress has already been seen, they leave it in their closet collecting dust until its either given away or thrown away. This need for new looks and Instagram’s fancy new ability to buy clothes directly from the app, make consuming cheap clothing easier than ever. But what are the costs of this new form of consumerism? The fast fashion movement has emphasized the customer without regarding the garment being made. Fast fashion companies are under severe scrutiny from both sustainability organizations and human rights protection organizations. While they produce cheap clothes for customers, they make clothes and accessories with fabrics that cannot be recycled, they are made by people who are not paid a living wage, and they are transported internationally unsustainably. This is a hard issue to combat, because to be able to make real change you have to ask consumers to spend more money one clothes and go against fashion norms of wearing the same things more frequently. I believe the general public is not aware of the true environmental and human impact of fast fashion. Thus, my hypothesis is that if more people were aware of the true negative impacts of the fast fashion industry, sustainable fashion brands would be more popular, and people would be more willing to be sustainable consumers. My goal is to create an interactive project that brings awareness to the need for the sustainable fashion industry. I will do this by creating an interactive world map. A user will be able to select one of four garments or accessories, and then starting with the production of the textiles, the user will be able to follow the creation, transportation, and selling of the garment across a world map. With each step there will be a small explanation of what is wrong for the environment or the people making the item to bring awareness to the issues. At the end of the cycle the user will be asked on average how long someone keeps that garment and what they do with it when they decide to remove it from their closet. Hopefully the information from this interactive map will help users understand the importance of supporting sustainable fashion brands and the sustainability movement in general.

            Recently, many scholars have been writing about the benefits of sustainable fashion and social entrepreneurship as ways to combat this issue. I will be mainly pulling from sources found in academic journals or books, accessed through the Davidson library. Many companies fear moving to a “values-driven industry” comes from their worry of “financial uncertainty” (Batist). But many companies are starting in employ intrapreneurs, people who work within a company to bring change (like a sustainability initiative, for example), rather than starting a new company from scratch. Scholars like Henninger study the success of the slow fashion movement, the response to the unsustainable growth of the fast fashion market. Henninger finds that the concept of sustainable fashion is subjective to both the brand and the buyer, making it hard to define but also broad enough to apply to a vast audience. Niinimaki explores the ethical foundations of sustainable fashion, asking what ethics all brands must follow and what ethics are up to interpretation. There is enough scholarly research on this topic to be able to put together a comprehensive research project.

            This is not an easy project proposal. I do not have vast experience with web design or interactive website creation, making the work more extensive because there will be a research component too. There is a possibility that this project will not attract many viewers on its own, but if I feel it is a successful project, I will send it to organizations like the Fashion Transparency Index and Good on You (in hopes that they will promote it!). Both of those organizations judge the sustainability of fashion brands, but their grading systems are very different. They both have large social media followings, showing that there is an interested group who cares about this issue as much as I do. This is a problem worth working on, I feel the project will be finished when it helps change people’s fashion consumption habits, even if that just means making someone think twice before purchasing something from Forever21, for example. I am interested because I, a fashion-conscious college student addicted to social media, am the perfect target for the fast fashion industry, and I know how truly easy it is to get suck. But, there is a point where we as humans need to take responsibility and acknowledge that there are more ways that we can help save the environment than just using metal straws. Time to practice what we preach!

Bibliography:

Batist, Danielle. Incentivizing Sustainable Fashion: Lessons From Social Entrepreneurs. 28 Feb. 2017, https://www.forbes.com/sites/ashoka/2017/02/28/incentivizing-sustainable-fashion-lessons-from-social-entrepreneurs/#1a7a66227d3e.

Bly, Sarah, et al. “Exit from the High Street: An Exploratory Study of Sustainable Fashion Consumption Pioneers.”International Journal of Consumer Studies, vol. 39, no. 2, 2015, pp. 125–135. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.1111/ijcs.12159.

—. “Exit from the High Street: An Exploratory Study of Sustainable Fashion Consumption Pioneers.” International Journal of Consumer Studies, vol. 39, no. 2, 2015, pp. 125–35. Wiley Online Library, doi:10.1111/ijcs.12159.

Choi, Tsan-Ming, and T. C. Edwin Cheng. Sustainable Fashion Supply Chain Management From Sourcing to Retailing. Springer International Publishing, 2015.

D’Anolfo, Marco, et al. “Luxury, Sustainability, and Corporate Social Responsibility: Insights from Fashion Luxury Case Studies and Consumers’ Perceptions.” Sustainable Management of Luxury, edited by Miguel Angel Gardetti, Springer, 2017, pp. 427–48. Springer Link, doi:10.1007/978-981-10-2917-2_20.

Gardetti, Miguel Angel, and Rachida Justo. “Sustainable Luxury Fashion: The Entrepreneurs’ Vision.” Sustainable Management of Luxury, edited by Miguel Angel Gardetti, Springer, 2017, pp. 347–60. Springer Link, doi:10.1007/978-981-10-2917-2_16.

Giacosa, Elisa. “The Family Business Phenomenon as a Means for a Sustainable Business in the Clothing Luxury Business.” Sustainable Management of Luxury, edited by Miguel Angel Gardetti, Springer, 2017, pp. 361–85. Springer Link, doi:10.1007/978-981-10-2917-2_17.

Glausiusz, Josie. “Sustainable Fashion.” Nature, vol. 459, no. 7249, 2009, p. 915. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.1038/459915a.

Henninger, Claudia E., et al. “What Is Sustainable Fashion?” Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management; Bradford, vol. 20, no. 4, 2016, pp. 400–16. ProQuest, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/JFMM-07-2015-0052.

Muthu, Subramanian Senthilkannan. Textiles and Clothing Sustainability Sustainable Fashion and Consumption. Springer Singapore, 2017.

Niinimäki, Kirsi. “Ethical Foundations in Sustainable Fashion.” Textiles and Clothing Sustainability, vol. 1, no. 1, 2015, pp. 1–11. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.1186/s40689-015-0002-1.

—. “Ethical Foundations in Sustainable Fashion.” Textiles and Clothing Sustainability, vol. 1, no. 1, Dec. 2015, p. 3. DOI.org (Crossref), doi:10.1186/s40689-015-0002-1.

Park, Hyejune, and Youn-kyung Kim. “An Empirical Test of the Triple Bottom Line of Customer-Centric Sustainability: The Case of Fast Fashion.” Fashion and Textiles; Heidelberg, vol. 3, no. 1, Dec. 2016, pp. 1–18. ProQuest, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40691-016-0077-6.

Perkins, Lewis. “Running Circles Around Unsustainable Textile Practices.” WWD: Women’s Wear Daily; Los Angeles, vol. 211, no. 25, June 2016, p. 66.

Shen, Bin. “Sustainable Fashion Supply Chain: Lessons from H&M.” Sustainability, vol. 6, no. 9, 2014, pp. 6236–6249. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.3390/su6096236.

Shilpa, V., and C. Madhavaiah. “Luxury Fashion Goods and Sustainable Consumption Behaviour.” Journal of Marketing Vistas; Hyderabad, vol. 7, no. 2, Dec. 2017, pp. 60–66.

Turker, Duygu, and Ceren Altuntas. “Sustainable Supply Chain Management in the Fast Fashion Industry: An Analysis of Corporate Reports.” European Management Journal; Oxford, vol. 32, no. 5, Oct. 2014, p. 837.

Grace Hall

Project Proposal

26 Jan 2020

What Should I Do With All My Clothes?: A Study of Fast Fashion and Its Global Impact

            With the rise of social media, there has become an increased need for fast fashion brands. Instead of wearing our clothes multiple times, people are more likely to wear a dress once and post a picture in it. Then, because the dress has already been seen, they leave it in their closet collecting dust until its either given away or thrown away. This need for new looks and Instagram’s fancy new ability to buy clothes directly from the app, make consuming cheap clothing easier than ever. But what are the costs of this new form of consumerism? The fast fashion movement has emphasized the customer without regarding the garment being made. Fast fashion companies are under severe scrutiny from both sustainability organizations and human rights protection organizations. While they produce cheap clothes for customers, they make clothes and accessories with fabrics that cannot be recycled, they are made by people who are not paid a living wage, and they are transported internationally unsustainably. This is a hard issue to combat, because to be able to make real change you have to ask consumers to spend more money one clothes and go against fashion norms of wearing the same things more frequently. I believe the general public is not aware of the true environmental and human impact of fast fashion. Thus, my hypothesis is that if more people were aware of the true negative impacts of the fast fashion industry, sustainable fashion brands would be more popular, and people would be more willing to be sustainable consumers. My goal is to create an interactive project that brings awareness to the need for the sustainable fashion industry. I will do this by creating an interactive world map. A user will be able to select one of four garments or accessories, and then starting with the production of the textiles, the user will be able to follow the creation, transportation, and selling of the garment across a world map. With each step there will be a small explanation of what is wrong for the environment or the people making the item to bring awareness to the issues. At the end of the cycle the user will be asked on average how long someone keeps that garment and what they do with it when they decide to remove it from their closet. Hopefully the information from this interactive map will help users understand the importance of supporting sustainable fashion brands and the sustainability movement in general.

            Recently, many scholars have been writing about the benefits of sustainable fashion and social entrepreneurship as ways to combat this issue. I will be mainly pulling from sources found in academic journals or books, accessed through the Davidson library. Many companies fear moving to a “values-driven industry” comes from their worry of “financial uncertainty” (Batist). But many companies are starting in employ intrapreneurs, people who work within a company to bring change (like a sustainability initiative, for example), rather than starting a new company from scratch. Scholars like Henninger study the success of the slow fashion movement, the response to the unsustainable growth of the fast fashion market. Henninger finds that the concept of sustainable fashion is subjective to both the brand and the buyer, making it hard to define but also broad enough to apply to a vast audience. Niinimaki explores the ethical foundations of sustainable fashion, asking what ethics all brands must follow and what ethics are up to interpretation. There is enough scholarly research on this topic to be able to put together a comprehensive research project.

            This is not an easy project proposal. I do not have vast experience with web design or interactive website creation, making the work more extensive because there will be a research component too. There is a possibility that this project will not attract many viewers on its own, but if I feel it is a successful project, I will send it to organizations like the Fashion Transparency Index and Good on You (in hopes that they will promote it!). Both of those organizations judge the sustainability of fashion brands, but their grading systems are very different. They both have large social media followings, showing that there is an interested group who cares about this issue as much as I do. This is a problem worth working on, I feel the project will be finished when it helps change people’s fashion consumption habits, even if that just means making someone think twice before purchasing something from Forever21, for example. I am interested because I, a fashion-conscious college student addicted to social media, am the perfect target for the fast fashion industry, and I know how truly easy it is to get suck. But, there is a point where we as humans need to take responsibility and acknowledge that there are more ways that we can help save the environment than just using metal straws. Time to practice what we preach!

Bibliography:

Batist, Danielle. Incentivizing Sustainable Fashion: Lessons From Social Entrepreneurs. 28 Feb. 2017, https://www.forbes.com/sites/ashoka/2017/02/28/incentivizing-sustainable-fashion-lessons-from-social-entrepreneurs/#1a7a66227d3e.

Bly, Sarah, et al. “Exit from the High Street: An Exploratory Study of Sustainable Fashion Consumption Pioneers.”International Journal of Consumer Studies, vol. 39, no. 2, 2015, pp. 125–135. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.1111/ijcs.12159.

—. “Exit from the High Street: An Exploratory Study of Sustainable Fashion Consumption Pioneers.” International Journal of Consumer Studies, vol. 39, no. 2, 2015, pp. 125–35. Wiley Online Library, doi:10.1111/ijcs.12159.

Choi, Tsan-Ming, and T. C. Edwin Cheng. Sustainable Fashion Supply Chain Management From Sourcing to Retailing. Springer International Publishing, 2015.

D’Anolfo, Marco, et al. “Luxury, Sustainability, and Corporate Social Responsibility: Insights from Fashion Luxury Case Studies and Consumers’ Perceptions.” Sustainable Management of Luxury, edited by Miguel Angel Gardetti, Springer, 2017, pp. 427–48. Springer Link, doi:10.1007/978-981-10-2917-2_20.

Gardetti, Miguel Angel, and Rachida Justo. “Sustainable Luxury Fashion: The Entrepreneurs’ Vision.” Sustainable Management of Luxury, edited by Miguel Angel Gardetti, Springer, 2017, pp. 347–60. Springer Link, doi:10.1007/978-981-10-2917-2_16.

Giacosa, Elisa. “The Family Business Phenomenon as a Means for a Sustainable Business in the Clothing Luxury Business.” Sustainable Management of Luxury, edited by Miguel Angel Gardetti, Springer, 2017, pp. 361–85. Springer Link, doi:10.1007/978-981-10-2917-2_17.

Glausiusz, Josie. “Sustainable Fashion.” Nature, vol. 459, no. 7249, 2009, p. 915. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.1038/459915a.

Henninger, Claudia E., et al. “What Is Sustainable Fashion?” Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management; Bradford, vol. 20, no. 4, 2016, pp. 400–16. ProQuest, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/JFMM-07-2015-0052.

Muthu, Subramanian Senthilkannan. Textiles and Clothing Sustainability Sustainable Fashion and Consumption. Springer Singapore, 2017.

Niinimäki, Kirsi. “Ethical Foundations in Sustainable Fashion.” Textiles and Clothing Sustainability, vol. 1, no. 1, 2015, pp. 1–11. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.1186/s40689-015-0002-1.

—. “Ethical Foundations in Sustainable Fashion.” Textiles and Clothing Sustainability, vol. 1, no. 1, Dec. 2015, p. 3. DOI.org (Crossref), doi:10.1186/s40689-015-0002-1.

Park, Hyejune, and Youn-kyung Kim. “An Empirical Test of the Triple Bottom Line of Customer-Centric Sustainability: The Case of Fast Fashion.” Fashion and Textiles; Heidelberg, vol. 3, no. 1, Dec. 2016, pp. 1–18. ProQuest, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40691-016-0077-6.

Perkins, Lewis. “Running Circles Around Unsustainable Textile Practices.” WWD: Women’s Wear Daily; Los Angeles, vol. 211, no. 25, June 2016, p. 66.

Shen, Bin. “Sustainable Fashion Supply Chain: Lessons from H&M.” Sustainability, vol. 6, no. 9, 2014, pp. 6236–6249. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.3390/su6096236.

Shilpa, V., and C. Madhavaiah. “Luxury Fashion Goods and Sustainable Consumption Behaviour.” Journal of Marketing Vistas; Hyderabad, vol. 7, no. 2, Dec. 2017, pp. 60–66.

Turker, Duygu, and Ceren Altuntas. “Sustainable Supply Chain Management in the Fast Fashion Industry: An Analysis of Corporate Reports.” European Management Journal; Oxford, vol. 32, no. 5, Oct. 2014, p. 837.

Grace Hall

Project Proposal

26 Jan 2020

What Should I Do With All My Clothes?: A Study of Fast Fashion and Its Global Impact

            With the rise of social media, there has become an increased need for fast fashion brands. Instead of wearing our clothes multiple times, people are more likely to wear a dress once and post a picture in it. Then, because the dress has already been seen, they leave it in their closet collecting dust until its either given away or thrown away. This need for new looks and Instagram’s fancy new ability to buy clothes directly from the app, make consuming cheap clothing easier than ever. But what are the costs of this new form of consumerism? The fast fashion movement has emphasized the customer without regarding the garment being made. Fast fashion companies are under severe scrutiny from both sustainability organizations and human rights protection organizations. While they produce cheap clothes for customers, they make clothes and accessories with fabrics that cannot be recycled, they are made by people who are not paid a living wage, and they are transported internationally unsustainably. This is a hard issue to combat, because to be able to make real change you have to ask consumers to spend more money one clothes and go against fashion norms of wearing the same things more frequently. I believe the general public is not aware of the true environmental and human impact of fast fashion. Thus, my hypothesis is that if more people were aware of the true negative impacts of the fast fashion industry, sustainable fashion brands would be more popular, and people would be more willing to be sustainable consumers. My goal is to create an interactive project that brings awareness to the need for the sustainable fashion industry. I will do this by creating an interactive world map. A user will be able to select one of four garments or accessories, and then starting with the production of the textiles, the user will be able to follow the creation, transportation, and selling of the garment across a world map. With each step there will be a small explanation of what is wrong for the environment or the people making the item to bring awareness to the issues. At the end of the cycle the user will be asked on average how long someone keeps that garment and what they do with it when they decide to remove it from their closet. Hopefully the information from this interactive map will help users understand the importance of supporting sustainable fashion brands and the sustainability movement in general.

            Recently, many scholars have been writing about the benefits of sustainable fashion and social entrepreneurship as ways to combat this issue. I will be mainly pulling from sources found in academic journals or books, accessed through the Davidson library. Many companies fear moving to a “values-driven industry” comes from their worry of “financial uncertainty” (Batist). But many companies are starting in employ intrapreneurs, people who work within a company to bring change (like a sustainability initiative, for example), rather than starting a new company from scratch. Scholars like Henninger study the success of the slow fashion movement, the response to the unsustainable growth of the fast fashion market. Henninger finds that the concept of sustainable fashion is subjective to both the brand and the buyer, making it hard to define but also broad enough to apply to a vast audience. Niinimaki explores the ethical foundations of sustainable fashion, asking what ethics all brands must follow and what ethics are up to interpretation. There is enough scholarly research on this topic to be able to put together a comprehensive research project.

            This is not an easy project proposal. I do not have vast experience with web design or interactive website creation, making the work more extensive because there will be a research component too. There is a possibility that this project will not attract many viewers on its own, but if I feel it is a successful project, I will send it to organizations like the Fashion Transparency Index and Good on You (in hopes that they will promote it!). Both of those organizations judge the sustainability of fashion brands, but their grading systems are very different. They both have large social media followings, showing that there is an interested group who cares about this issue as much as I do. This is a problem worth working on, I feel the project will be finished when it helps change people’s fashion consumption habits, even if that just means making someone think twice before purchasing something from Forever21, for example. I am interested because I, a fashion-conscious college student addicted to social media, am the perfect target for the fast fashion industry, and I know how truly easy it is to get suck. But, there is a point where we as humans need to take responsibility and acknowledge that there are more ways that we can help save the environment than just using metal straws. Time to practice what we preach!

Bibliography:

Batist, Danielle. Incentivizing Sustainable Fashion: Lessons From Social Entrepreneurs. 28 Feb. 2017, https://www.forbes.com/sites/ashoka/2017/02/28/incentivizing-sustainable-fashion-lessons-from-social-entrepreneurs/#1a7a66227d3e.

Bly, Sarah, et al. “Exit from the High Street: An Exploratory Study of Sustainable Fashion Consumption Pioneers.”International Journal of Consumer Studies, vol. 39, no. 2, 2015, pp. 125–135. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.1111/ijcs.12159.

—. “Exit from the High Street: An Exploratory Study of Sustainable Fashion Consumption Pioneers.” International Journal of Consumer Studies, vol. 39, no. 2, 2015, pp. 125–35. Wiley Online Library, doi:10.1111/ijcs.12159.

Choi, Tsan-Ming, and T. C. Edwin Cheng. Sustainable Fashion Supply Chain Management From Sourcing to Retailing. Springer International Publishing, 2015.

D’Anolfo, Marco, et al. “Luxury, Sustainability, and Corporate Social Responsibility: Insights from Fashion Luxury Case Studies and Consumers’ Perceptions.” Sustainable Management of Luxury, edited by Miguel Angel Gardetti, Springer, 2017, pp. 427–48. Springer Link, doi:10.1007/978-981-10-2917-2_20.

Gardetti, Miguel Angel, and Rachida Justo. “Sustainable Luxury Fashion: The Entrepreneurs’ Vision.” Sustainable Management of Luxury, edited by Miguel Angel Gardetti, Springer, 2017, pp. 347–60. Springer Link, doi:10.1007/978-981-10-2917-2_16.

Giacosa, Elisa. “The Family Business Phenomenon as a Means for a Sustainable Business in the Clothing Luxury Business.” Sustainable Management of Luxury, edited by Miguel Angel Gardetti, Springer, 2017, pp. 361–85. Springer Link, doi:10.1007/978-981-10-2917-2_17.

Glausiusz, Josie. “Sustainable Fashion.” Nature, vol. 459, no. 7249, 2009, p. 915. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.1038/459915a.

Henninger, Claudia E., et al. “What Is Sustainable Fashion?” Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management; Bradford, vol. 20, no. 4, 2016, pp. 400–16. ProQuest, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/JFMM-07-2015-0052.

Muthu, Subramanian Senthilkannan. Textiles and Clothing Sustainability Sustainable Fashion and Consumption. Springer Singapore, 2017.

Niinimäki, Kirsi. “Ethical Foundations in Sustainable Fashion.” Textiles and Clothing Sustainability, vol. 1, no. 1, 2015, pp. 1–11. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.1186/s40689-015-0002-1.

—. “Ethical Foundations in Sustainable Fashion.” Textiles and Clothing Sustainability, vol. 1, no. 1, Dec. 2015, p. 3. DOI.org (Crossref), doi:10.1186/s40689-015-0002-1.

Park, Hyejune, and Youn-kyung Kim. “An Empirical Test of the Triple Bottom Line of Customer-Centric Sustainability: The Case of Fast Fashion.” Fashion and Textiles; Heidelberg, vol. 3, no. 1, Dec. 2016, pp. 1–18. ProQuest, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40691-016-0077-6.

Perkins, Lewis. “Running Circles Around Unsustainable Textile Practices.” WWD: Women’s Wear Daily; Los Angeles, vol. 211, no. 25, June 2016, p. 66.

Shen, Bin. “Sustainable Fashion Supply Chain: Lessons from H&M.” Sustainability, vol. 6, no. 9, 2014, pp. 6236–6249. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.3390/su6096236.

Shilpa, V., and C. Madhavaiah. “Luxury Fashion Goods and Sustainable Consumption Behaviour.” Journal of Marketing Vistas; Hyderabad, vol. 7, no. 2, Dec. 2017, pp. 60–66.

Turker, Duygu, and Ceren Altuntas. “Sustainable Supply Chain Management in the Fast Fashion Industry: An Analysis of Corporate Reports.” European Management Journal; Oxford, vol. 32, no. 5, Oct. 2014, p. 837.

Grace Hall

Project Proposal

26 Jan 2020

What Should I Do With All My Clothes?: A Study of Fast Fashion and Its Global Impact

            With the rise of social media, there has become an increased need for fast fashion brands. Instead of wearing our clothes multiple times, people are more likely to wear a dress once and post a picture in it. Then, because the dress has already been seen, they leave it in their closet collecting dust until its either given away or thrown away. This need for new looks and Instagram’s fancy new ability to buy clothes directly from the app, make consuming cheap clothing easier than ever. But what are the costs of this new form of consumerism? The fast fashion movement has emphasized the customer without regarding the garment being made. Fast fashion companies are under severe scrutiny from both sustainability organizations and human rights protection organizations. While they produce cheap clothes for customers, they make clothes and accessories with fabrics that cannot be recycled, they are made by people who are not paid a living wage, and they are transported internationally unsustainably. This is a hard issue to combat, because to be able to make real change you have to ask consumers to spend more money one clothes and go against fashion norms of wearing the same things more frequently. I believe the general public is not aware of the true environmental and human impact of fast fashion. Thus, my hypothesis is that if more people were aware of the true negative impacts of the fast fashion industry, sustainable fashion brands would be more popular, and people would be more willing to be sustainable consumers. My goal is to create an interactive project that brings awareness to the need for the sustainable fashion industry. I will do this by creating an interactive world map. A user will be able to select one of four garments or accessories, and then starting with the production of the textiles, the user will be able to follow the creation, transportation, and selling of the garment across a world map. With each step there will be a small explanation of what is wrong for the environment or the people making the item to bring awareness to the issues. At the end of the cycle the user will be asked on average how long someone keeps that garment and what they do with it when they decide to remove it from their closet. Hopefully the information from this interactive map will help users understand the importance of supporting sustainable fashion brands and the sustainability movement in general.

            Recently, many scholars have been writing about the benefits of sustainable fashion and social entrepreneurship as ways to combat this issue. I will be mainly pulling from sources found in academic journals or books, accessed through the Davidson library. Many companies fear moving to a “values-driven industry” comes from their worry of “financial uncertainty” (Batist). But many companies are starting in employ intrapreneurs, people who work within a company to bring change (like a sustainability initiative, for example), rather than starting a new company from scratch. Scholars like Henninger study the success of the slow fashion movement, the response to the unsustainable growth of the fast fashion market. Henninger finds that the concept of sustainable fashion is subjective to both the brand and the buyer, making it hard to define but also broad enough to apply to a vast audience. Niinimaki explores the ethical foundations of sustainable fashion, asking what ethics all brands must follow and what ethics are up to interpretation. There is enough scholarly research on this topic to be able to put together a comprehensive research project.

            This is not an easy project proposal. I do not have vast experience with web design or interactive website creation, making the work more extensive because there will be a research component too. There is a possibility that this project will not attract many viewers on its own, but if I feel it is a successful project, I will send it to organizations like the Fashion Transparency Index and Good on You (in hopes that they will promote it!). Both of those organizations judge the sustainability of fashion brands, but their grading systems are very different. They both have large social media followings, showing that there is an interested group who cares about this issue as much as I do. This is a problem worth working on, I feel the project will be finished when it helps change people’s fashion consumption habits, even if that just means making someone think twice before purchasing something from Forever21, for example. I am interested because I, a fashion-conscious college student addicted to social media, am the perfect target for the fast fashion industry, and I know how truly easy it is to get suck. But, there is a point where we as humans need to take responsibility and acknowledge that there are more ways that we can help save the environment than just using metal straws. Time to practice what we preach!

Bibliography:

Batist, Danielle. Incentivizing Sustainable Fashion: Lessons From Social Entrepreneurs. 28 Feb. 2017, https://www.forbes.com/sites/ashoka/2017/02/28/incentivizing-sustainable-fashion-lessons-from-social-entrepreneurs/#1a7a66227d3e.

Bly, Sarah, et al. “Exit from the High Street: An Exploratory Study of Sustainable Fashion Consumption Pioneers.”International Journal of Consumer Studies, vol. 39, no. 2, 2015, pp. 125–135. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.1111/ijcs.12159.

—. “Exit from the High Street: An Exploratory Study of Sustainable Fashion Consumption Pioneers.” International Journal of Consumer Studies, vol. 39, no. 2, 2015, pp. 125–35. Wiley Online Library, doi:10.1111/ijcs.12159.

Choi, Tsan-Ming, and T. C. Edwin Cheng. Sustainable Fashion Supply Chain Management From Sourcing to Retailing. Springer International Publishing, 2015.

D’Anolfo, Marco, et al. “Luxury, Sustainability, and Corporate Social Responsibility: Insights from Fashion Luxury Case Studies and Consumers’ Perceptions.” Sustainable Management of Luxury, edited by Miguel Angel Gardetti, Springer, 2017, pp. 427–48. Springer Link, doi:10.1007/978-981-10-2917-2_20.

Gardetti, Miguel Angel, and Rachida Justo. “Sustainable Luxury Fashion: The Entrepreneurs’ Vision.” Sustainable Management of Luxury, edited by Miguel Angel Gardetti, Springer, 2017, pp. 347–60. Springer Link, doi:10.1007/978-981-10-2917-2_16.

Giacosa, Elisa. “The Family Business Phenomenon as a Means for a Sustainable Business in the Clothing Luxury Business.” Sustainable Management of Luxury, edited by Miguel Angel Gardetti, Springer, 2017, pp. 361–85. Springer Link, doi:10.1007/978-981-10-2917-2_17.

Glausiusz, Josie. “Sustainable Fashion.” Nature, vol. 459, no. 7249, 2009, p. 915. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.1038/459915a.

Henninger, Claudia E., et al. “What Is Sustainable Fashion?” Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management; Bradford, vol. 20, no. 4, 2016, pp. 400–16. ProQuest, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/JFMM-07-2015-0052.

Muthu, Subramanian Senthilkannan. Textiles and Clothing Sustainability Sustainable Fashion and Consumption. Springer Singapore, 2017.

Niinimäki, Kirsi. “Ethical Foundations in Sustainable Fashion.” Textiles and Clothing Sustainability, vol. 1, no. 1, 2015, pp. 1–11. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.1186/s40689-015-0002-1.

—. “Ethical Foundations in Sustainable Fashion.” Textiles and Clothing Sustainability, vol. 1, no. 1, Dec. 2015, p. 3. DOI.org (Crossref), doi:10.1186/s40689-015-0002-1.

Park, Hyejune, and Youn-kyung Kim. “An Empirical Test of the Triple Bottom Line of Customer-Centric Sustainability: The Case of Fast Fashion.” Fashion and Textiles; Heidelberg, vol. 3, no. 1, Dec. 2016, pp. 1–18. ProQuest, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40691-016-0077-6.

Perkins, Lewis. “Running Circles Around Unsustainable Textile Practices.” WWD: Women’s Wear Daily; Los Angeles, vol. 211, no. 25, June 2016, p. 66.

Shen, Bin. “Sustainable Fashion Supply Chain: Lessons from H&M.” Sustainability, vol. 6, no. 9, 2014, pp. 6236–6249. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.3390/su6096236.

Shilpa, V., and C. Madhavaiah. “Luxury Fashion Goods and Sustainable Consumption Behaviour.” Journal of Marketing Vistas; Hyderabad, vol. 7, no. 2, Dec. 2017, pp. 60–66.

Turker, Duygu, and Ceren Altuntas. “Sustainable Supply Chain Management in the Fast Fashion Industry: An Analysis of Corporate Reports.” European Management Journal; Oxford, vol. 32, no. 5, Oct. 2014, p. 837.

Grace Hall

Project Proposal

26 Jan 2020

What Should I Do With All My Clothes?: A Study of Fast Fashion and Its Global Impact

            With the rise of social media, there has become an increased need for fast fashion brands. Instead of wearing our clothes multiple times, people are more likely to wear a dress once and post a picture in it. Then, because the dress has already been seen, they leave it in their closet collecting dust until its either given away or thrown away. This need for new looks and Instagram’s fancy new ability to buy clothes directly from the app, make consuming cheap clothing easier than ever. But what are the costs of this new form of consumerism? The fast fashion movement has emphasized the customer without regarding the garment being made. Fast fashion companies are under severe scrutiny from both sustainability organizations and human rights protection organizations. While they produce cheap clothes for customers, they make clothes and accessories with fabrics that cannot be recycled, they are made by people who are not paid a living wage, and they are transported internationally unsustainably. This is a hard issue to combat, because to be able to make real change you have to ask consumers to spend more money one clothes and go against fashion norms of wearing the same things more frequently. I believe the general public is not aware of the true environmental and human impact of fast fashion. Thus, my hypothesis is that if more people were aware of the true negative impacts of the fast fashion industry, sustainable fashion brands would be more popular, and people would be more willing to be sustainable consumers. My goal is to create an interactive project that brings awareness to the need for the sustainable fashion industry. I will do this by creating an interactive world map. A user will be able to select one of four garments or accessories, and then starting with the production of the textiles, the user will be able to follow the creation, transportation, and selling of the garment across a world map. With each step there will be a small explanation of what is wrong for the environment or the people making the item to bring awareness to the issues. At the end of the cycle the user will be asked on average how long someone keeps that garment and what they do with it when they decide to remove it from their closet. Hopefully the information from this interactive map will help users understand the importance of supporting sustainable fashion brands and the sustainability movement in general.

            Recently, many scholars have been writing about the benefits of sustainable fashion and social entrepreneurship as ways to combat this issue. I will be mainly pulling from sources found in academic journals or books, accessed through the Davidson library. Many companies fear moving to a “values-driven industry” comes from their worry of “financial uncertainty” (Batist). But many companies are starting in employ intrapreneurs, people who work within a company to bring change (like a sustainability initiative, for example), rather than starting a new company from scratch. Scholars like Henninger study the success of the slow fashion movement, the response to the unsustainable growth of the fast fashion market. Henninger finds that the concept of sustainable fashion is subjective to both the brand and the buyer, making it hard to define but also broad enough to apply to a vast audience. Niinimaki explores the ethical foundations of sustainable fashion, asking what ethics all brands must follow and what ethics are up to interpretation. There is enough scholarly research on this topic to be able to put together a comprehensive research project.

            This is not an easy project proposal. I do not have vast experience with web design or interactive website creation, making the work more extensive because there will be a research component too. There is a possibility that this project will not attract many viewers on its own, but if I feel it is a successful project, I will send it to organizations like the Fashion Transparency Index and Good on You (in hopes that they will promote it!). Both of those organizations judge the sustainability of fashion brands, but their grading systems are very different. They both have large social media followings, showing that there is an interested group who cares about this issue as much as I do. This is a problem worth working on, I feel the project will be finished when it helps change people’s fashion consumption habits, even if that just means making someone think twice before purchasing something from Forever21, for example. I am interested because I, a fashion-conscious college student addicted to social media, am the perfect target for the fast fashion industry, and I know how truly easy it is to get suck. But, there is a point where we as humans need to take responsibility and acknowledge that there are more ways that we can help save the environment than just using metal straws. Time to practice what we preach!

Bibliography:

Batist, Danielle. Incentivizing Sustainable Fashion: Lessons From Social Entrepreneurs. 28 Feb. 2017, https://www.forbes.com/sites/ashoka/2017/02/28/incentivizing-sustainable-fashion-lessons-from-social-entrepreneurs/#1a7a66227d3e.

Bly, Sarah, et al. “Exit from the High Street: An Exploratory Study of Sustainable Fashion Consumption Pioneers.”International Journal of Consumer Studies, vol. 39, no. 2, 2015, pp. 125–135. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.1111/ijcs.12159.

—. “Exit from the High Street: An Exploratory Study of Sustainable Fashion Consumption Pioneers.” International Journal of Consumer Studies, vol. 39, no. 2, 2015, pp. 125–35. Wiley Online Library, doi:10.1111/ijcs.12159.

Choi, Tsan-Ming, and T. C. Edwin Cheng. Sustainable Fashion Supply Chain Management From Sourcing to Retailing. Springer International Publishing, 2015.

D’Anolfo, Marco, et al. “Luxury, Sustainability, and Corporate Social Responsibility: Insights from Fashion Luxury Case Studies and Consumers’ Perceptions.” Sustainable Management of Luxury, edited by Miguel Angel Gardetti, Springer, 2017, pp. 427–48. Springer Link, doi:10.1007/978-981-10-2917-2_20.

Gardetti, Miguel Angel, and Rachida Justo. “Sustainable Luxury Fashion: The Entrepreneurs’ Vision.” Sustainable Management of Luxury, edited by Miguel Angel Gardetti, Springer, 2017, pp. 347–60. Springer Link, doi:10.1007/978-981-10-2917-2_16.

Giacosa, Elisa. “The Family Business Phenomenon as a Means for a Sustainable Business in the Clothing Luxury Business.” Sustainable Management of Luxury, edited by Miguel Angel Gardetti, Springer, 2017, pp. 361–85. Springer Link, doi:10.1007/978-981-10-2917-2_17.

Glausiusz, Josie. “Sustainable Fashion.” Nature, vol. 459, no. 7249, 2009, p. 915. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.1038/459915a.

Henninger, Claudia E., et al. “What Is Sustainable Fashion?” Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management; Bradford, vol. 20, no. 4, 2016, pp. 400–16. ProQuest, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/JFMM-07-2015-0052.

Muthu, Subramanian Senthilkannan. Textiles and Clothing Sustainability Sustainable Fashion and Consumption. Springer Singapore, 2017.

Niinimäki, Kirsi. “Ethical Foundations in Sustainable Fashion.” Textiles and Clothing Sustainability, vol. 1, no. 1, 2015, pp. 1–11. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.1186/s40689-015-0002-1.

—. “Ethical Foundations in Sustainable Fashion.” Textiles and Clothing Sustainability, vol. 1, no. 1, Dec. 2015, p. 3. DOI.org (Crossref), doi:10.1186/s40689-015-0002-1.

Park, Hyejune, and Youn-kyung Kim. “An Empirical Test of the Triple Bottom Line of Customer-Centric Sustainability: The Case of Fast Fashion.” Fashion and Textiles; Heidelberg, vol. 3, no. 1, Dec. 2016, pp. 1–18. ProQuest, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40691-016-0077-6.

Perkins, Lewis. “Running Circles Around Unsustainable Textile Practices.” WWD: Women’s Wear Daily; Los Angeles, vol. 211, no. 25, June 2016, p. 66.

Shen, Bin. “Sustainable Fashion Supply Chain: Lessons from H&M.” Sustainability, vol. 6, no. 9, 2014, pp. 6236–6249. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.3390/su6096236.

Shilpa, V., and C. Madhavaiah. “Luxury Fashion Goods and Sustainable Consumption Behaviour.” Journal of Marketing Vistas; Hyderabad, vol. 7, no. 2, Dec. 2017, pp. 60–66.

Turker, Duygu, and Ceren Altuntas. “Sustainable Supply Chain Management in the Fast Fashion Industry: An Analysis of Corporate Reports.” European Management Journal; Oxford, vol. 32, no. 5, Oct. 2014, p. 837.

Grace Hall

Project Proposal

26 Jan 2020

What Should I Do With All My Clothes?: A Study of Fast Fashion and Its Global Impact

            With the rise of social media, there has become an increased need for fast fashion brands. Instead of wearing our clothes multiple times, people are more likely to wear a dress once and post a picture in it. Then, because the dress has already been seen, they leave it in their closet collecting dust until its either given away or thrown away. This need for new looks and Instagram’s fancy new ability to buy clothes directly from the app, make consuming cheap clothing easier than ever. But what are the costs of this new form of consumerism? The fast fashion movement has emphasized the customer without regarding the garment being made. Fast fashion companies are under severe scrutiny from both sustainability organizations and human rights protection organizations. While they produce cheap clothes for customers, they make clothes and accessories with fabrics that cannot be recycled, they are made by people who are not paid a living wage, and they are transported internationally unsustainably. This is a hard issue to combat, because to be able to make real change you have to ask consumers to spend more money one clothes and go against fashion norms of wearing the same things more frequently. I believe the general public is not aware of the true environmental and human impact of fast fashion. Thus, my hypothesis is that if more people were aware of the true negative impacts of the fast fashion industry, sustainable fashion brands would be more popular, and people would be more willing to be sustainable consumers. My goal is to create an interactive project that brings awareness to the need for the sustainable fashion industry. I will do this by creating an interactive world map. A user will be able to select one of four garments or accessories, and then starting with the production of the textiles, the user will be able to follow the creation, transportation, and selling of the garment across a world map. With each step there will be a small explanation of what is wrong for the environment or the people making the item to bring awareness to the issues. At the end of the cycle the user will be asked on average how long someone keeps that garment and what they do with it when they decide to remove it from their closet. Hopefully the information from this interactive map will help users understand the importance of supporting sustainable fashion brands and the sustainability movement in general.

            Recently, many scholars have been writing about the benefits of sustainable fashion and social entrepreneurship as ways to combat this issue. I will be mainly pulling from sources found in academic journals or books, accessed through the Davidson library. Many companies fear moving to a “values-driven industry” comes from their worry of “financial uncertainty” (Batist). But many companies are starting in employ intrapreneurs, people who work within a company to bring change (like a sustainability initiative, for example), rather than starting a new company from scratch. Scholars like Henninger study the success of the slow fashion movement, the response to the unsustainable growth of the fast fashion market. Henninger finds that the concept of sustainable fashion is subjective to both the brand and the buyer, making it hard to define but also broad enough to apply to a vast audience. Niinimaki explores the ethical foundations of sustainable fashion, asking what ethics all brands must follow and what ethics are up to interpretation. There is enough scholarly research on this topic to be able to put together a comprehensive research project.

            This is not an easy project proposal. I do not have vast experience with web design or interactive website creation, making the work more extensive because there will be a research component too. There is a possibility that this project will not attract many viewers on its own, but if I feel it is a successful project, I will send it to organizations like the Fashion Transparency Index and Good on You (in hopes that they will promote it!). Both of those organizations judge the sustainability of fashion brands, but their grading systems are very different. They both have large social media followings, showing that there is an interested group who cares about this issue as much as I do. This is a problem worth working on, I feel the project will be finished when it helps change people’s fashion consumption habits, even if that just means making someone think twice before purchasing something from Forever21, for example. I am interested because I, a fashion-conscious college student addicted to social media, am the perfect target for the fast fashion industry, and I know how truly easy it is to get suck. But, there is a point where we as humans need to take responsibility and acknowledge that there are more ways that we can help save the environment than just using metal straws. Time to practice what we preach!

Bibliography:

Batist, Danielle. Incentivizing Sustainable Fashion: Lessons From Social Entrepreneurs. 28 Feb. 2017, https://www.forbes.com/sites/ashoka/2017/02/28/incentivizing-sustainable-fashion-lessons-from-social-entrepreneurs/#1a7a66227d3e.

Bly, Sarah, et al. “Exit from the High Street: An Exploratory Study of Sustainable Fashion Consumption Pioneers.”International Journal of Consumer Studies, vol. 39, no. 2, 2015, pp. 125–135. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.1111/ijcs.12159.

—. “Exit from the High Street: An Exploratory Study of Sustainable Fashion Consumption Pioneers.” International Journal of Consumer Studies, vol. 39, no. 2, 2015, pp. 125–35. Wiley Online Library, doi:10.1111/ijcs.12159.

Choi, Tsan-Ming, and T. C. Edwin Cheng. Sustainable Fashion Supply Chain Management From Sourcing to Retailing. Springer International Publishing, 2015.

D’Anolfo, Marco, et al. “Luxury, Sustainability, and Corporate Social Responsibility: Insights from Fashion Luxury Case Studies and Consumers’ Perceptions.” Sustainable Management of Luxury, edited by Miguel Angel Gardetti, Springer, 2017, pp. 427–48. Springer Link, doi:10.1007/978-981-10-2917-2_20.

Gardetti, Miguel Angel, and Rachida Justo. “Sustainable Luxury Fashion: The Entrepreneurs’ Vision.” Sustainable Management of Luxury, edited by Miguel Angel Gardetti, Springer, 2017, pp. 347–60. Springer Link, doi:10.1007/978-981-10-2917-2_16.

Giacosa, Elisa. “The Family Business Phenomenon as a Means for a Sustainable Business in the Clothing Luxury Business.” Sustainable Management of Luxury, edited by Miguel Angel Gardetti, Springer, 2017, pp. 361–85. Springer Link, doi:10.1007/978-981-10-2917-2_17.

Glausiusz, Josie. “Sustainable Fashion.” Nature, vol. 459, no. 7249, 2009, p. 915. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.1038/459915a.

Henninger, Claudia E., et al. “What Is Sustainable Fashion?” Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management; Bradford, vol. 20, no. 4, 2016, pp. 400–16. ProQuest, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/JFMM-07-2015-0052.

Muthu, Subramanian Senthilkannan. Textiles and Clothing Sustainability Sustainable Fashion and Consumption. Springer Singapore, 2017.

Niinimäki, Kirsi. “Ethical Foundations in Sustainable Fashion.” Textiles and Clothing Sustainability, vol. 1, no. 1, 2015, pp. 1–11. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.1186/s40689-015-0002-1.

—. “Ethical Foundations in Sustainable Fashion.” Textiles and Clothing Sustainability, vol. 1, no. 1, Dec. 2015, p. 3. DOI.org (Crossref), doi:10.1186/s40689-015-0002-1.

Park, Hyejune, and Youn-kyung Kim. “An Empirical Test of the Triple Bottom Line of Customer-Centric Sustainability: The Case of Fast Fashion.” Fashion and Textiles; Heidelberg, vol. 3, no. 1, Dec. 2016, pp. 1–18. ProQuest, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40691-016-0077-6.

Perkins, Lewis. “Running Circles Around Unsustainable Textile Practices.” WWD: Women’s Wear Daily; Los Angeles, vol. 211, no. 25, June 2016, p. 66.

Shen, Bin. “Sustainable Fashion Supply Chain: Lessons from H&M.” Sustainability, vol. 6, no. 9, 2014, pp. 6236–6249. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.3390/su6096236.

Shilpa, V., and C. Madhavaiah. “Luxury Fashion Goods and Sustainable Consumption Behaviour.” Journal of Marketing Vistas; Hyderabad, vol. 7, no. 2, Dec. 2017, pp. 60–66.

Turker, Duygu, and Ceren Altuntas. “Sustainable Supply Chain Management in the Fast Fashion Industry: An Analysis of Corporate Reports.” European Management Journal; Oxford, vol. 32, no. 5, Oct. 2014, p. 837.

Grace Hall

Project Proposal

26 Jan 2020

What Should I Do With All My Clothes?: A Study of Fast Fashion and Its Global Impact

            With the rise of social media, there has become an increased need for fast fashion brands. Instead of wearing our clothes multiple times, people are more likely to wear a dress once and post a picture in it. Then, because the dress has already been seen, they leave it in their closet collecting dust until its either given away or thrown away. This need for new looks and Instagram’s fancy new ability to buy clothes directly from the app, make consuming cheap clothing easier than ever. But what are the costs of this new form of consumerism? The fast fashion movement has emphasized the customer without regarding the garment being made. Fast fashion companies are under severe scrutiny from both sustainability organizations and human rights protection organizations. While they produce cheap clothes for customers, they make clothes and accessories with fabrics that cannot be recycled, they are made by people who are not paid a living wage, and they are transported internationally unsustainably. This is a hard issue to combat, because to be able to make real change you have to ask consumers to spend more money one clothes and go against fashion norms of wearing the same things more frequently. I believe the general public is not aware of the true environmental and human impact of fast fashion. Thus, my hypothesis is that if more people were aware of the true negative impacts of the fast fashion industry, sustainable fashion brands would be more popular, and people would be more willing to be sustainable consumers. My goal is to create an interactive project that brings awareness to the need for the sustainable fashion industry. I will do this by creating an interactive world map. A user will be able to select one of four garments or accessories, and then starting with the production of the textiles, the user will be able to follow the creation, transportation, and selling of the garment across a world map. With each step there will be a small explanation of what is wrong for the environment or the people making the item to bring awareness to the issues. At the end of the cycle the user will be asked on average how long someone keeps that garment and what they do with it when they decide to remove it from their closet. Hopefully the information from this interactive map will help users understand the importance of supporting sustainable fashion brands and the sustainability movement in general.

            Recently, many scholars have been writing about the benefits of sustainable fashion and social entrepreneurship as ways to combat this issue. I will be mainly pulling from sources found in academic journals or books, accessed through the Davidson library. Many companies fear moving to a “values-driven industry” comes from their worry of “financial uncertainty” (Batist). But many companies are starting in employ intrapreneurs, people who work within a company to bring change (like a sustainability initiative, for example), rather than starting a new company from scratch. Scholars like Henninger study the success of the slow fashion movement, the response to the unsustainable growth of the fast fashion market. Henninger finds that the concept of sustainable fashion is subjective to both the brand and the buyer, making it hard to define but also broad enough to apply to a vast audience. Niinimaki explores the ethical foundations of sustainable fashion, asking what ethics all brands must follow and what ethics are up to interpretation. There is enough scholarly research on this topic to be able to put together a comprehensive research project.

            This is not an easy project proposal. I do not have vast experience with web design or interactive website creation, making the work more extensive because there will be a research component too. There is a possibility that this project will not attract many viewers on its own, but if I feel it is a successful project, I will send it to organizations like the Fashion Transparency Index and Good on You (in hopes that they will promote it!). Both of those organizations judge the sustainability of fashion brands, but their grading systems are very different. They both have large social media followings, showing that there is an interested group who cares about this issue as much as I do. This is a problem worth working on, I feel the project will be finished when it helps change people’s fashion consumption habits, even if that just means making someone think twice before purchasing something from Forever21, for example. I am interested because I, a fashion-conscious college student addicted to social media, am the perfect target for the fast fashion industry, and I know how truly easy it is to get suck. But, there is a point where we as humans need to take responsibility and acknowledge that there are more ways that we can help save the environment than just using metal straws. Time to practice what we preach!

Bibliography:

Batist, Danielle. Incentivizing Sustainable Fashion: Lessons From Social Entrepreneurs. 28 Feb. 2017, https://www.forbes.com/sites/ashoka/2017/02/28/incentivizing-sustainable-fashion-lessons-from-social-entrepreneurs/#1a7a66227d3e.

Bly, Sarah, et al. “Exit from the High Street: An Exploratory Study of Sustainable Fashion Consumption Pioneers.”International Journal of Consumer Studies, vol. 39, no. 2, 2015, pp. 125–135. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.1111/ijcs.12159.

—. “Exit from the High Street: An Exploratory Study of Sustainable Fashion Consumption Pioneers.” International Journal of Consumer Studies, vol. 39, no. 2, 2015, pp. 125–35. Wiley Online Library, doi:10.1111/ijcs.12159.

Choi, Tsan-Ming, and T. C. Edwin Cheng. Sustainable Fashion Supply Chain Management From Sourcing to Retailing. Springer International Publishing, 2015.

D’Anolfo, Marco, et al. “Luxury, Sustainability, and Corporate Social Responsibility: Insights from Fashion Luxury Case Studies and Consumers’ Perceptions.” Sustainable Management of Luxury, edited by Miguel Angel Gardetti, Springer, 2017, pp. 427–48. Springer Link, doi:10.1007/978-981-10-2917-2_20.

Gardetti, Miguel Angel, and Rachida Justo. “Sustainable Luxury Fashion: The Entrepreneurs’ Vision.” Sustainable Management of Luxury, edited by Miguel Angel Gardetti, Springer, 2017, pp. 347–60. Springer Link, doi:10.1007/978-981-10-2917-2_16.

Giacosa, Elisa. “The Family Business Phenomenon as a Means for a Sustainable Business in the Clothing Luxury Business.” Sustainable Management of Luxury, edited by Miguel Angel Gardetti, Springer, 2017, pp. 361–85. Springer Link, doi:10.1007/978-981-10-2917-2_17.

Glausiusz, Josie. “Sustainable Fashion.” Nature, vol. 459, no. 7249, 2009, p. 915. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.1038/459915a.

Henninger, Claudia E., et al. “What Is Sustainable Fashion?” Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management; Bradford, vol. 20, no. 4, 2016, pp. 400–16. ProQuest, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/JFMM-07-2015-0052.

Muthu, Subramanian Senthilkannan. Textiles and Clothing Sustainability Sustainable Fashion and Consumption. Springer Singapore, 2017.

Niinimäki, Kirsi. “Ethical Foundations in Sustainable Fashion.” Textiles and Clothing Sustainability, vol. 1, no. 1, 2015, pp. 1–11. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.1186/s40689-015-0002-1.

—. “Ethical Foundations in Sustainable Fashion.” Textiles and Clothing Sustainability, vol. 1, no. 1, Dec. 2015, p. 3. DOI.org (Crossref), doi:10.1186/s40689-015-0002-1.

Park, Hyejune, and Youn-kyung Kim. “An Empirical Test of the Triple Bottom Line of Customer-Centric Sustainability: The Case of Fast Fashion.” Fashion and Textiles; Heidelberg, vol. 3, no. 1, Dec. 2016, pp. 1–18. ProQuest, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40691-016-0077-6.

Perkins, Lewis. “Running Circles Around Unsustainable Textile Practices.” WWD: Women’s Wear Daily; Los Angeles, vol. 211, no. 25, June 2016, p. 66.

Shen, Bin. “Sustainable Fashion Supply Chain: Lessons from H&M.” Sustainability, vol. 6, no. 9, 2014, pp. 6236–6249. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.3390/su6096236.

Shilpa, V., and C. Madhavaiah. “Luxury Fashion Goods and Sustainable Consumption Behaviour.” Journal of Marketing Vistas; Hyderabad, vol. 7, no. 2, Dec. 2017, pp. 60–66.

Turker, Duygu, and Ceren Altuntas. “Sustainable Supply Chain Management in the Fast Fashion Industry: An Analysis of Corporate Reports.” European Management Journal; Oxford, vol. 32, no. 5, Oct. 2014, p. 837.

Grace Hall

Project Proposal

26 Jan 2020

What Should I Do With All My Clothes?: A Study of Fast Fashion and Its Global Impact

            With the rise of social media, there has become an increased need for fast fashion brands. Instead of wearing our clothes multiple times, people are more likely to wear a dress once and post a picture in it. Then, because the dress has already been seen, they leave it in their closet collecting dust until its either given away or thrown away. This need for new looks and Instagram’s fancy new ability to buy clothes directly from the app, make consuming cheap clothing easier than ever. But what are the costs of this new form of consumerism? The fast fashion movement has emphasized the customer without regarding the garment being made. Fast fashion companies are under severe scrutiny from both sustainability organizations and human rights protection organizations. While they produce cheap clothes for customers, they make clothes and accessories with fabrics that cannot be recycled, they are made by people who are not paid a living wage, and they are transported internationally unsustainably. This is a hard issue to combat, because to be able to make real change you have to ask consumers to spend more money one clothes and go against fashion norms of wearing the same things more frequently. I believe the general public is not aware of the true environmental and human impact of fast fashion. Thus, my hypothesis is that if more people were aware of the true negative impacts of the fast fashion industry, sustainable fashion brands would be more popular, and people would be more willing to be sustainable consumers. My goal is to create an interactive project that brings awareness to the need for the sustainable fashion industry. I will do this by creating an interactive world map. A user will be able to select one of four garments or accessories, and then starting with the production of the textiles, the user will be able to follow the creation, transportation, and selling of the garment across a world map. With each step there will be a small explanation of what is wrong for the environment or the people making the item to bring awareness to the issues. At the end of the cycle the user will be asked on average how long someone keeps that garment and what they do with it when they decide to remove it from their closet. Hopefully the information from this interactive map will help users understand the importance of supporting sustainable fashion brands and the sustainability movement in general.

            Recently, many scholars have been writing about the benefits of sustainable fashion and social entrepreneurship as ways to combat this issue. I will be mainly pulling from sources found in academic journals or books, accessed through the Davidson library. Many companies fear moving to a “values-driven industry” comes from their worry of “financial uncertainty” (Batist). But many companies are starting in employ intrapreneurs, people who work within a company to bring change (like a sustainability initiative, for example), rather than starting a new company from scratch. Scholars like Henninger study the success of the slow fashion movement, the response to the unsustainable growth of the fast fashion market. Henninger finds that the concept of sustainable fashion is subjective to both the brand and the buyer, making it hard to define but also broad enough to apply to a vast audience. Niinimaki explores the ethical foundations of sustainable fashion, asking what ethics all brands must follow and what ethics are up to interpretation. There is enough scholarly research on this topic to be able to put together a comprehensive research project.

            This is not an easy project proposal. I do not have vast experience with web design or interactive website creation, making the work more extensive because there will be a research component too. There is a possibility that this project will not attract many viewers on its own, but if I feel it is a successful project, I will send it to organizations like the Fashion Transparency Index and Good on You (in hopes that they will promote it!). Both of those organizations judge the sustainability of fashion brands, but their grading systems are very different. They both have large social media followings, showing that there is an interested group who cares about this issue as much as I do. This is a problem worth working on, I feel the project will be finished when it helps change people’s fashion consumption habits, even if that just means making someone think twice before purchasing something from Forever21, for example. I am interested because I, a fashion-conscious college student addicted to social media, am the perfect target for the fast fashion industry, and I know how truly easy it is to get suck. But, there is a point where we as humans need to take responsibility and acknowledge that there are more ways that we can help save the environment than just using metal straws. Time to practice what we preach!

Bibliography:

Batist, Danielle. Incentivizing Sustainable Fashion: Lessons From Social Entrepreneurs. 28 Feb. 2017, https://www.forbes.com/sites/ashoka/2017/02/28/incentivizing-sustainable-fashion-lessons-from-social-entrepreneurs/#1a7a66227d3e.

Bly, Sarah, et al. “Exit from the High Street: An Exploratory Study of Sustainable Fashion Consumption Pioneers.”International Journal of Consumer Studies, vol. 39, no. 2, 2015, pp. 125–135. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.1111/ijcs.12159.

—. “Exit from the High Street: An Exploratory Study of Sustainable Fashion Consumption Pioneers.” International Journal of Consumer Studies, vol. 39, no. 2, 2015, pp. 125–35. Wiley Online Library, doi:10.1111/ijcs.12159.

Choi, Tsan-Ming, and T. C. Edwin Cheng. Sustainable Fashion Supply Chain Management From Sourcing to Retailing. Springer International Publishing, 2015.

D’Anolfo, Marco, et al. “Luxury, Sustainability, and Corporate Social Responsibility: Insights from Fashion Luxury Case Studies and Consumers’ Perceptions.” Sustainable Management of Luxury, edited by Miguel Angel Gardetti, Springer, 2017, pp. 427–48. Springer Link, doi:10.1007/978-981-10-2917-2_20.

Gardetti, Miguel Angel, and Rachida Justo. “Sustainable Luxury Fashion: The Entrepreneurs’ Vision.” Sustainable Management of Luxury, edited by Miguel Angel Gardetti, Springer, 2017, pp. 347–60. Springer Link, doi:10.1007/978-981-10-2917-2_16.

Giacosa, Elisa. “The Family Business Phenomenon as a Means for a Sustainable Business in the Clothing Luxury Business.” Sustainable Management of Luxury, edited by Miguel Angel Gardetti, Springer, 2017, pp. 361–85. Springer Link, doi:10.1007/978-981-10-2917-2_17.

Glausiusz, Josie. “Sustainable Fashion.” Nature, vol. 459, no. 7249, 2009, p. 915. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.1038/459915a.

Henninger, Claudia E., et al. “What Is Sustainable Fashion?” Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management; Bradford, vol. 20, no. 4, 2016, pp. 400–16. ProQuest, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/JFMM-07-2015-0052.

Muthu, Subramanian Senthilkannan. Textiles and Clothing Sustainability Sustainable Fashion and Consumption. Springer Singapore, 2017.

Niinimäki, Kirsi. “Ethical Foundations in Sustainable Fashion.” Textiles and Clothing Sustainability, vol. 1, no. 1, 2015, pp. 1–11. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.1186/s40689-015-0002-1.

—. “Ethical Foundations in Sustainable Fashion.” Textiles and Clothing Sustainability, vol. 1, no. 1, Dec. 2015, p. 3. DOI.org (Crossref), doi:10.1186/s40689-015-0002-1.

Park, Hyejune, and Youn-kyung Kim. “An Empirical Test of the Triple Bottom Line of Customer-Centric Sustainability: The Case of Fast Fashion.” Fashion and Textiles; Heidelberg, vol. 3, no. 1, Dec. 2016, pp. 1–18. ProQuest, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40691-016-0077-6.

Perkins, Lewis. “Running Circles Around Unsustainable Textile Practices.” WWD: Women’s Wear Daily; Los Angeles, vol. 211, no. 25, June 2016, p. 66.

Shen, Bin. “Sustainable Fashion Supply Chain: Lessons from H&M.” Sustainability, vol. 6, no. 9, 2014, pp. 6236–6249. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.3390/su6096236.

Shilpa, V., and C. Madhavaiah. “Luxury Fashion Goods and Sustainable Consumption Behaviour.” Journal of Marketing Vistas; Hyderabad, vol. 7, no. 2, Dec. 2017, pp. 60–66.

Turker, Duygu, and Ceren Altuntas. “Sustainable Supply Chain Management in the Fast Fashion Industry: An Analysis of Corporate Reports.” European Management Journal; Oxford, vol. 32, no. 5, Oct. 2014, p. 837.

Grace Hall

Project Proposal

26 Jan 2020

What Should I Do With All My Clothes?: A Study of Fast Fashion and Its Global Impact

            With the rise of social media, there has become an increased need for fast fashion brands. Instead of wearing our clothes multiple times, people are more likely to wear a dress once and post a picture in it. Then, because the dress has already been seen, they leave it in their closet collecting dust until its either given away or thrown away. This need for new looks and Instagram’s fancy new ability to buy clothes directly from the app, make consuming cheap clothing easier than ever. But what are the costs of this new form of consumerism? The fast fashion movement has emphasized the customer without regarding the garment being made. Fast fashion companies are under severe scrutiny from both sustainability organizations and human rights protection organizations. While they produce cheap clothes for customers, they make clothes and accessories with fabrics that cannot be recycled, they are made by people who are not paid a living wage, and they are transported internationally unsustainably. This is a hard issue to combat, because to be able to make real change you have to ask consumers to spend more money one clothes and go against fashion norms of wearing the same things more frequently. I believe the general public is not aware of the true environmental and human impact of fast fashion. Thus, my hypothesis is that if more people were aware of the true negative impacts of the fast fashion industry, sustainable fashion brands would be more popular, and people would be more willing to be sustainable consumers. My goal is to create an interactive project that brings awareness to the need for the sustainable fashion industry. I will do this by creating an interactive world map. A user will be able to select one of four garments or accessories, and then starting with the production of the textiles, the user will be able to follow the creation, transportation, and selling of the garment across a world map. With each step there will be a small explanation of what is wrong for the environment or the people making the item to bring awareness to the issues. At the end of the cycle the user will be asked on average how long someone keeps that garment and what they do with it when they decide to remove it from their closet. Hopefully the information from this interactive map will help users understand the importance of supporting sustainable fashion brands and the sustainability movement in general.

            Recently, many scholars have been writing about the benefits of sustainable fashion and social entrepreneurship as ways to combat this issue. I will be mainly pulling from sources found in academic journals or books, accessed through the Davidson library. Many companies fear moving to a “values-driven industry” comes from their worry of “financial uncertainty” (Batist). But many companies are starting in employ intrapreneurs, people who work within a company to bring change (like a sustainability initiative, for example), rather than starting a new company from scratch. Scholars like Henninger study the success of the slow fashion movement, the response to the unsustainable growth of the fast fashion market. Henninger finds that the concept of sustainable fashion is subjective to both the brand and the buyer, making it hard to define but also broad enough to apply to a vast audience. Niinimaki explores the ethical foundations of sustainable fashion, asking what ethics all brands must follow and what ethics are up to interpretation. There is enough scholarly research on this topic to be able to put together a comprehensive research project.

            This is not an easy project proposal. I do not have vast experience with web design or interactive website creation, making the work more extensive because there will be a research component too. There is a possibility that this project will not attract many viewers on its own, but if I feel it is a successful project, I will send it to organizations like the Fashion Transparency Index and Good on You (in hopes that they will promote it!). Both of those organizations judge the sustainability of fashion brands, but their grading systems are very different. They both have large social media followings, showing that there is an interested group who cares about this issue as much as I do. This is a problem worth working on, I feel the project will be finished when it helps change people’s fashion consumption habits, even if that just means making someone think twice before purchasing something from Forever21, for example. I am interested because I, a fashion-conscious college student addicted to social media, am the perfect target for the fast fashion industry, and I know how truly easy it is to get suck. But, there is a point where we as humans need to take responsibility and acknowledge that there are more ways that we can help save the environment than just using metal straws. Time to practice what we preach!

Bibliography:

Batist, Danielle. Incentivizing Sustainable Fashion: Lessons From Social Entrepreneurs. 28 Feb. 2017, https://www.forbes.com/sites/ashoka/2017/02/28/incentivizing-sustainable-fashion-lessons-from-social-entrepreneurs/#1a7a66227d3e.

Bly, Sarah, et al. “Exit from the High Street: An Exploratory Study of Sustainable Fashion Consumption Pioneers.”International Journal of Consumer Studies, vol. 39, no. 2, 2015, pp. 125–135. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.1111/ijcs.12159.

—. “Exit from the High Street: An Exploratory Study of Sustainable Fashion Consumption Pioneers.” International Journal of Consumer Studies, vol. 39, no. 2, 2015, pp. 125–35. Wiley Online Library, doi:10.1111/ijcs.12159.

Choi, Tsan-Ming, and T. C. Edwin Cheng. Sustainable Fashion Supply Chain Management From Sourcing to Retailing. Springer International Publishing, 2015.

D’Anolfo, Marco, et al. “Luxury, Sustainability, and Corporate Social Responsibility: Insights from Fashion Luxury Case Studies and Consumers’ Perceptions.” Sustainable Management of Luxury, edited by Miguel Angel Gardetti, Springer, 2017, pp. 427–48. Springer Link, doi:10.1007/978-981-10-2917-2_20.

Gardetti, Miguel Angel, and Rachida Justo. “Sustainable Luxury Fashion: The Entrepreneurs’ Vision.” Sustainable Management of Luxury, edited by Miguel Angel Gardetti, Springer, 2017, pp. 347–60. Springer Link, doi:10.1007/978-981-10-2917-2_16.

Giacosa, Elisa. “The Family Business Phenomenon as a Means for a Sustainable Business in the Clothing Luxury Business.” Sustainable Management of Luxury, edited by Miguel Angel Gardetti, Springer, 2017, pp. 361–85. Springer Link, doi:10.1007/978-981-10-2917-2_17.

Glausiusz, Josie. “Sustainable Fashion.” Nature, vol. 459, no. 7249, 2009, p. 915. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.1038/459915a.

Henninger, Claudia E., et al. “What Is Sustainable Fashion?” Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management; Bradford, vol. 20, no. 4, 2016, pp. 400–16. ProQuest, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/JFMM-07-2015-0052.

Muthu, Subramanian Senthilkannan. Textiles and Clothing Sustainability Sustainable Fashion and Consumption. Springer Singapore, 2017.

Niinimäki, Kirsi. “Ethical Foundations in Sustainable Fashion.” Textiles and Clothing Sustainability, vol. 1, no. 1, 2015, pp. 1–11. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.1186/s40689-015-0002-1.

—. “Ethical Foundations in Sustainable Fashion.” Textiles and Clothing Sustainability, vol. 1, no. 1, Dec. 2015, p. 3. DOI.org (Crossref), doi:10.1186/s40689-015-0002-1.

Park, Hyejune, and Youn-kyung Kim. “An Empirical Test of the Triple Bottom Line of Customer-Centric Sustainability: The Case of Fast Fashion.” Fashion and Textiles; Heidelberg, vol. 3, no. 1, Dec. 2016, pp. 1–18. ProQuest, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40691-016-0077-6.

Perkins, Lewis. “Running Circles Around Unsustainable Textile Practices.” WWD: Women’s Wear Daily; Los Angeles, vol. 211, no. 25, June 2016, p. 66.

Shen, Bin. “Sustainable Fashion Supply Chain: Lessons from H&M.” Sustainability, vol. 6, no. 9, 2014, pp. 6236–6249. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.3390/su6096236.

Shilpa, V., and C. Madhavaiah. “Luxury Fashion Goods and Sustainable Consumption Behaviour.” Journal of Marketing Vistas; Hyderabad, vol. 7, no. 2, Dec. 2017, pp. 60–66.

Turker, Duygu, and Ceren Altuntas. “Sustainable Supply Chain Management in the Fast Fashion Industry: An Analysis of Corporate Reports.” European Management Journal; Oxford, vol. 32, no. 5, Oct. 2014, p. 837.

Grace Hall

Project Proposal

26 Jan 2020

What Should I Do With All My Clothes?: A Study of Fast Fashion and Its Global Impact

            With the rise of social media, there has become an increased need for fast fashion brands. Instead of wearing our clothes multiple times, people are more likely to wear a dress once and post a picture in it. Then, because the dress has already been seen, they leave it in their closet collecting dust until its either given away or thrown away. This need for new looks and Instagram’s fancy new ability to buy clothes directly from the app, make consuming cheap clothing easier than ever. But what are the costs of this new form of consumerism? The fast fashion movement has emphasized the customer without regarding the garment being made. Fast fashion companies are under severe scrutiny from both sustainability organizations and human rights protection organizations. While they produce cheap clothes for customers, they make clothes and accessories with fabrics that cannot be recycled, they are made by people who are not paid a living wage, and they are transported internationally unsustainably. This is a hard issue to combat, because to be able to make real change you have to ask consumers to spend more money one clothes and go against fashion norms of wearing the same things more frequently. I believe the general public is not aware of the true environmental and human impact of fast fashion. Thus, my hypothesis is that if more people were aware of the true negative impacts of the fast fashion industry, sustainable fashion brands would be more popular, and people would be more willing to be sustainable consumers. My goal is to create an interactive project that brings awareness to the need for the sustainable fashion industry. I will do this by creating an interactive world map. A user will be able to select one of four garments or accessories, and then starting with the production of the textiles, the user will be able to follow the creation, transportation, and selling of the garment across a world map. With each step there will be a small explanation of what is wrong for the environment or the people making the item to bring awareness to the issues. At the end of the cycle the user will be asked on average how long someone keeps that garment and what they do with it when they decide to remove it from their closet. Hopefully the information from this interactive map will help users understand the importance of supporting sustainable fashion brands and the sustainability movement in general.

            Recently, many scholars have been writing about the benefits of sustainable fashion and social entrepreneurship as ways to combat this issue. I will be mainly pulling from sources found in academic journals or books, accessed through the Davidson library. Many companies fear moving to a “values-driven industry” comes from their worry of “financial uncertainty” (Batist). But many companies are starting in employ intrapreneurs, people who work within a company to bring change (like a sustainability initiative, for example), rather than starting a new company from scratch. Scholars like Henninger study the success of the slow fashion movement, the response to the unsustainable growth of the fast fashion market. Henninger finds that the concept of sustainable fashion is subjective to both the brand and the buyer, making it hard to define but also broad enough to apply to a vast audience. Niinimaki explores the ethical foundations of sustainable fashion, asking what ethics all brands must follow and what ethics are up to interpretation. There is enough scholarly research on this topic to be able to put together a comprehensive research project.

            This is not an easy project proposal. I do not have vast experience with web design or interactive website creation, making the work more extensive because there will be a research component too. There is a possibility that this project will not attract many viewers on its own, but if I feel it is a successful project, I will send it to organizations like the Fashion Transparency Index and Good on You (in hopes that they will promote it!). Both of those organizations judge the sustainability of fashion brands, but their grading systems are very different. They both have large social media followings, showing that there is an interested group who cares about this issue as much as I do. This is a problem worth working on, I feel the project will be finished when it helps change people’s fashion consumption habits, even if that just means making someone think twice before purchasing something from Forever21, for example. I am interested because I, a fashion-conscious college student addicted to social media, am the perfect target for the fast fashion industry, and I know how truly easy it is to get suck. But, there is a point where we as humans need to take responsibility and acknowledge that there are more ways that we can help save the environment than just using metal straws. Time to practice what we preach!

Bibliography:

Batist, Danielle. Incentivizing Sustainable Fashion: Lessons From Social Entrepreneurs. 28 Feb. 2017, https://www.forbes.com/sites/ashoka/2017/02/28/incentivizing-sustainable-fashion-lessons-from-social-entrepreneurs/#1a7a66227d3e.

Bly, Sarah, et al. “Exit from the High Street: An Exploratory Study of Sustainable Fashion Consumption Pioneers.”International Journal of Consumer Studies, vol. 39, no. 2, 2015, pp. 125–135. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.1111/ijcs.12159.

—. “Exit from the High Street: An Exploratory Study of Sustainable Fashion Consumption Pioneers.” International Journal of Consumer Studies, vol. 39, no. 2, 2015, pp. 125–35. Wiley Online Library, doi:10.1111/ijcs.12159.

Choi, Tsan-Ming, and T. C. Edwin Cheng. Sustainable Fashion Supply Chain Management From Sourcing to Retailing. Springer International Publishing, 2015.

D’Anolfo, Marco, et al. “Luxury, Sustainability, and Corporate Social Responsibility: Insights from Fashion Luxury Case Studies and Consumers’ Perceptions.” Sustainable Management of Luxury, edited by Miguel Angel Gardetti, Springer, 2017, pp. 427–48. Springer Link, doi:10.1007/978-981-10-2917-2_20.

Gardetti, Miguel Angel, and Rachida Justo. “Sustainable Luxury Fashion: The Entrepreneurs’ Vision.” Sustainable Management of Luxury, edited by Miguel Angel Gardetti, Springer, 2017, pp. 347–60. Springer Link, doi:10.1007/978-981-10-2917-2_16.

Giacosa, Elisa. “The Family Business Phenomenon as a Means for a Sustainable Business in the Clothing Luxury Business.” Sustainable Management of Luxury, edited by Miguel Angel Gardetti, Springer, 2017, pp. 361–85. Springer Link, doi:10.1007/978-981-10-2917-2_17.

Glausiusz, Josie. “Sustainable Fashion.” Nature, vol. 459, no. 7249, 2009, p. 915. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.1038/459915a.

Henninger, Claudia E., et al. “What Is Sustainable Fashion?” Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management; Bradford, vol. 20, no. 4, 2016, pp. 400–16. ProQuest, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/JFMM-07-2015-0052.

Muthu, Subramanian Senthilkannan. Textiles and Clothing Sustainability Sustainable Fashion and Consumption. Springer Singapore, 2017.

Niinimäki, Kirsi. “Ethical Foundations in Sustainable Fashion.” Textiles and Clothing Sustainability, vol. 1, no. 1, 2015, pp. 1–11. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.1186/s40689-015-0002-1.

—. “Ethical Foundations in Sustainable Fashion.” Textiles and Clothing Sustainability, vol. 1, no. 1, Dec. 2015, p. 3. DOI.org (Crossref), doi:10.1186/s40689-015-0002-1.

Park, Hyejune, and Youn-kyung Kim. “An Empirical Test of the Triple Bottom Line of Customer-Centric Sustainability: The Case of Fast Fashion.” Fashion and Textiles; Heidelberg, vol. 3, no. 1, Dec. 2016, pp. 1–18. ProQuest, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40691-016-0077-6.

Perkins, Lewis. “Running Circles Around Unsustainable Textile Practices.” WWD: Women’s Wear Daily; Los Angeles, vol. 211, no. 25, June 2016, p. 66.

Shen, Bin. “Sustainable Fashion Supply Chain: Lessons from H&M.” Sustainability, vol. 6, no. 9, 2014, pp. 6236–6249. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.3390/su6096236.

Shilpa, V., and C. Madhavaiah. “Luxury Fashion Goods and Sustainable Consumption Behaviour.” Journal of Marketing Vistas; Hyderabad, vol. 7, no. 2, Dec. 2017, pp. 60–66.

Turker, Duygu, and Ceren Altuntas. “Sustainable Supply Chain Management in the Fast Fashion Industry: An Analysis of Corporate Reports.” European Management Journal; Oxford, vol. 32, no. 5, Oct. 2014, p. 837.

Grace Hall

Project Proposal

26 Jan 2020

What Should I Do With All My Clothes?: A Study of Fast Fashion and Its Global Impact

            With the rise of social media, there has become an increased need for fast fashion brands. Instead of wearing our clothes multiple times, people are more likely to wear a dress once and post a picture in it. Then, because the dress has already been seen, they leave it in their closet collecting dust until its either given away or thrown away. This need for new looks and Instagram’s fancy new ability to buy clothes directly from the app, make consuming cheap clothing easier than ever. But what are the costs of this new form of consumerism? The fast fashion movement has emphasized the customer without regarding the garment being made. Fast fashion companies are under severe scrutiny from both sustainability organizations and human rights protection organizations. While they produce cheap clothes for customers, they make clothes and accessories with fabrics that cannot be recycled, they are made by people who are not paid a living wage, and they are transported internationally unsustainably. This is a hard issue to combat, because to be able to make real change you have to ask consumers to spend more money one clothes and go against fashion norms of wearing the same things more frequently. I believe the general public is not aware of the true environmental and human impact of fast fashion. Thus, my hypothesis is that if more people were aware of the true negative impacts of the fast fashion industry, sustainable fashion brands would be more popular, and people would be more willing to be sustainable consumers. My goal is to create an interactive project that brings awareness to the need for the sustainable fashion industry. I will do this by creating an interactive world map. A user will be able to select one of four garments or accessories, and then starting with the production of the textiles, the user will be able to follow the creation, transportation, and selling of the garment across a world map. With each step there will be a small explanation of what is wrong for the environment or the people making the item to bring awareness to the issues. At the end of the cycle the user will be asked on average how long someone keeps that garment and what they do with it when they decide to remove it from their closet. Hopefully the information from this interactive map will help users understand the importance of supporting sustainable fashion brands and the sustainability movement in general.

            Recently, many scholars have been writing about the benefits of sustainable fashion and social entrepreneurship as ways to combat this issue. I will be mainly pulling from sources found in academic journals or books, accessed through the Davidson library. Many companies fear moving to a “values-driven industry” comes from their worry of “financial uncertainty” (Batist). But many companies are starting in employ intrapreneurs, people who work within a company to bring change (like a sustainability initiative, for example), rather than starting a new company from scratch. Scholars like Henninger study the success of the slow fashion movement, the response to the unsustainable growth of the fast fashion market. Henninger finds that the concept of sustainable fashion is subjective to both the brand and the buyer, making it hard to define but also broad enough to apply to a vast audience. Niinimaki explores the ethical foundations of sustainable fashion, asking what ethics all brands must follow and what ethics are up to interpretation. There is enough scholarly research on this topic to be able to put together a comprehensive research project.

            This is not an easy project proposal. I do not have vast experience with web design or interactive website creation, making the work more extensive because there will be a research component too. There is a possibility that this project will not attract many viewers on its own, but if I feel it is a successful project, I will send it to organizations like the Fashion Transparency Index and Good on You (in hopes that they will promote it!). Both of those organizations judge the sustainability of fashion brands, but their grading systems are very different. They both have large social media followings, showing that there is an interested group who cares about this issue as much as I do. This is a problem worth working on, I feel the project will be finished when it helps change people’s fashion consumption habits, even if that just means making someone think twice before purchasing something from Forever21, for example. I am interested because I, a fashion-conscious college student addicted to social media, am the perfect target for the fast fashion industry, and I know how truly easy it is to get suck. But, there is a point where we as humans need to take responsibility and acknowledge that there are more ways that we can help save the environment than just using metal straws. Time to practice what we preach!

Bibliography:

Batist, Danielle. Incentivizing Sustainable Fashion: Lessons From Social Entrepreneurs. 28 Feb. 2017, https://www.forbes.com/sites/ashoka/2017/02/28/incentivizing-sustainable-fashion-lessons-from-social-entrepreneurs/#1a7a66227d3e.

Bly, Sarah, et al. “Exit from the High Street: An Exploratory Study of Sustainable Fashion Consumption Pioneers.”International Journal of Consumer Studies, vol. 39, no. 2, 2015, pp. 125–135. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.1111/ijcs.12159.

—. “Exit from the High Street: An Exploratory Study of Sustainable Fashion Consumption Pioneers.” International Journal of Consumer Studies, vol. 39, no. 2, 2015, pp. 125–35. Wiley Online Library, doi:10.1111/ijcs.12159.

Choi, Tsan-Ming, and T. C. Edwin Cheng. Sustainable Fashion Supply Chain Management From Sourcing to Retailing. Springer International Publishing, 2015.

D’Anolfo, Marco, et al. “Luxury, Sustainability, and Corporate Social Responsibility: Insights from Fashion Luxury Case Studies and Consumers’ Perceptions.” Sustainable Management of Luxury, edited by Miguel Angel Gardetti, Springer, 2017, pp. 427–48. Springer Link, doi:10.1007/978-981-10-2917-2_20.

Gardetti, Miguel Angel, and Rachida Justo. “Sustainable Luxury Fashion: The Entrepreneurs’ Vision.” Sustainable Management of Luxury, edited by Miguel Angel Gardetti, Springer, 2017, pp. 347–60. Springer Link, doi:10.1007/978-981-10-2917-2_16.

Giacosa, Elisa. “The Family Business Phenomenon as a Means for a Sustainable Business in the Clothing Luxury Business.” Sustainable Management of Luxury, edited by Miguel Angel Gardetti, Springer, 2017, pp. 361–85. Springer Link, doi:10.1007/978-981-10-2917-2_17.

Glausiusz, Josie. “Sustainable Fashion.” Nature, vol. 459, no. 7249, 2009, p. 915. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.1038/459915a.

Henninger, Claudia E., et al. “What Is Sustainable Fashion?” Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management; Bradford, vol. 20, no. 4, 2016, pp. 400–16. ProQuest, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/JFMM-07-2015-0052.

Muthu, Subramanian Senthilkannan. Textiles and Clothing Sustainability Sustainable Fashion and Consumption. Springer Singapore, 2017.

Niinimäki, Kirsi. “Ethical Foundations in Sustainable Fashion.” Textiles and Clothing Sustainability, vol. 1, no. 1, 2015, pp. 1–11. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.1186/s40689-015-0002-1.

—. “Ethical Foundations in Sustainable Fashion.” Textiles and Clothing Sustainability, vol. 1, no. 1, Dec. 2015, p. 3. DOI.org (Crossref), doi:10.1186/s40689-015-0002-1.

Park, Hyejune, and Youn-kyung Kim. “An Empirical Test of the Triple Bottom Line of Customer-Centric Sustainability: The Case of Fast Fashion.” Fashion and Textiles; Heidelberg, vol. 3, no. 1, Dec. 2016, pp. 1–18. ProQuest, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40691-016-0077-6.

Perkins, Lewis. “Running Circles Around Unsustainable Textile Practices.” WWD: Women’s Wear Daily; Los Angeles, vol. 211, no. 25, June 2016, p. 66.

Shen, Bin. “Sustainable Fashion Supply Chain: Lessons from H&M.” Sustainability, vol. 6, no. 9, 2014, pp. 6236–6249. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.3390/su6096236.

Shilpa, V., and C. Madhavaiah. “Luxury Fashion Goods and Sustainable Consumption Behaviour.” Journal of Marketing Vistas; Hyderabad, vol. 7, no. 2, Dec. 2017, pp. 60–66.

Turker, Duygu, and Ceren Altuntas. “Sustainable Supply Chain Management in the Fast Fashion Industry: An Analysis of Corporate Reports.” European Management Journal; Oxford, vol. 32, no. 5, Oct. 2014, p. 837.

Grace Hall

Project Proposal

26 Jan 2020

What Should I Do With All My Clothes?: A Study of Fast Fashion and Its Global Impact

            With the rise of social media, there has become an increased need for fast fashion brands. Instead of wearing our clothes multiple times, people are more likely to wear a dress once and post a picture in it. Then, because the dress has already been seen, they leave it in their closet collecting dust until its either given away or thrown away. This need for new looks and Instagram’s fancy new ability to buy clothes directly from the app, make consuming cheap clothing easier than ever. But what are the costs of this new form of consumerism? The fast fashion movement has emphasized the customer without regarding the garment being made. Fast fashion companies are under severe scrutiny from both sustainability organizations and human rights protection organizations. While they produce cheap clothes for customers, they make clothes and accessories with fabrics that cannot be recycled, they are made by people who are not paid a living wage, and they are transported internationally unsustainably. This is a hard issue to combat, because to be able to make real change you have to ask consumers to spend more money one clothes and go against fashion norms of wearing the same things more frequently. I believe the general public is not aware of the true environmental and human impact of fast fashion. Thus, my hypothesis is that if more people were aware of the true negative impacts of the fast fashion industry, sustainable fashion brands would be more popular, and people would be more willing to be sustainable consumers. My goal is to create an interactive project that brings awareness to the need for the sustainable fashion industry. I will do this by creating an interactive world map. A user will be able to select one of four garments or accessories, and then starting with the production of the textiles, the user will be able to follow the creation, transportation, and selling of the garment across a world map. With each step there will be a small explanation of what is wrong for the environment or the people making the item to bring awareness to the issues. At the end of the cycle the user will be asked on average how long someone keeps that garment and what they do with it when they decide to remove it from their closet. Hopefully the information from this interactive map will help users understand the importance of supporting sustainable fashion brands and the sustainability movement in general.

            Recently, many scholars have been writing about the benefits of sustainable fashion and social entrepreneurship as ways to combat this issue. I will be mainly pulling from sources found in academic journals or books, accessed through the Davidson library. Many companies fear moving to a “values-driven industry” comes from their worry of “financial uncertainty” (Batist). But many companies are starting in employ intrapreneurs, people who work within a company to bring change (like a sustainability initiative, for example), rather than starting a new company from scratch. Scholars like Henninger study the success of the slow fashion movement, the response to the unsustainable growth of the fast fashion market. Henninger finds that the concept of sustainable fashion is subjective to both the brand and the buyer, making it hard to define but also broad enough to apply to a vast audience. Niinimaki explores the ethical foundations of sustainable fashion, asking what ethics all brands must follow and what ethics are up to interpretation. There is enough scholarly research on this topic to be able to put together a comprehensive research project.

            This is not an easy project proposal. I do not have vast experience with web design or interactive website creation, making the work more extensive because there will be a research component too. There is a possibility that this project will not attract many viewers on its own, but if I feel it is a successful project, I will send it to organizations like the Fashion Transparency Index and Good on You (in hopes that they will promote it!). Both of those organizations judge the sustainability of fashion brands, but their grading systems are very different. They both have large social media followings, showing that there is an interested group who cares about this issue as much as I do. This is a problem worth working on, I feel the project will be finished when it helps change people’s fashion consumption habits, even if that just means making someone think twice before purchasing something from Forever21, for example. I am interested because I, a fashion-conscious college student addicted to social media, am the perfect target for the fast fashion industry, and I know how truly easy it is to get suck. But, there is a point where we as humans need to take responsibility and acknowledge that there are more ways that we can help save the environment than just using metal straws. Time to practice what we preach!

Bibliography:

Batist, Danielle. Incentivizing Sustainable Fashion: Lessons From Social Entrepreneurs. 28 Feb. 2017, https://www.forbes.com/sites/ashoka/2017/02/28/incentivizing-sustainable-fashion-lessons-from-social-entrepreneurs/#1a7a66227d3e.

Bly, Sarah, et al. “Exit from the High Street: An Exploratory Study of Sustainable Fashion Consumption Pioneers.”International Journal of Consumer Studies, vol. 39, no. 2, 2015, pp. 125–135. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.1111/ijcs.12159.

—. “Exit from the High Street: An Exploratory Study of Sustainable Fashion Consumption Pioneers.” International Journal of Consumer Studies, vol. 39, no. 2, 2015, pp. 125–35. Wiley Online Library, doi:10.1111/ijcs.12159.

Choi, Tsan-Ming, and T. C. Edwin Cheng. Sustainable Fashion Supply Chain Management From Sourcing to Retailing. Springer International Publishing, 2015.

D’Anolfo, Marco, et al. “Luxury, Sustainability, and Corporate Social Responsibility: Insights from Fashion Luxury Case Studies and Consumers’ Perceptions.” Sustainable Management of Luxury, edited by Miguel Angel Gardetti, Springer, 2017, pp. 427–48. Springer Link, doi:10.1007/978-981-10-2917-2_20.

Gardetti, Miguel Angel, and Rachida Justo. “Sustainable Luxury Fashion: The Entrepreneurs’ Vision.” Sustainable Management of Luxury, edited by Miguel Angel Gardetti, Springer, 2017, pp. 347–60. Springer Link, doi:10.1007/978-981-10-2917-2_16.

Giacosa, Elisa. “The Family Business Phenomenon as a Means for a Sustainable Business in the Clothing Luxury Business.” Sustainable Management of Luxury, edited by Miguel Angel Gardetti, Springer, 2017, pp. 361–85. Springer Link, doi:10.1007/978-981-10-2917-2_17.

Glausiusz, Josie. “Sustainable Fashion.” Nature, vol. 459, no. 7249, 2009, p. 915. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.1038/459915a.

Henninger, Claudia E., et al. “What Is Sustainable Fashion?” Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management; Bradford, vol. 20, no. 4, 2016, pp. 400–16. ProQuest, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/JFMM-07-2015-0052.

Muthu, Subramanian Senthilkannan. Textiles and Clothing Sustainability Sustainable Fashion and Consumption. Springer Singapore, 2017.

Niinimäki, Kirsi. “Ethical Foundations in Sustainable Fashion.” Textiles and Clothing Sustainability, vol. 1, no. 1, 2015, pp. 1–11. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.1186/s40689-015-0002-1.

—. “Ethical Foundations in Sustainable Fashion.” Textiles and Clothing Sustainability, vol. 1, no. 1, Dec. 2015, p. 3. DOI.org (Crossref), doi:10.1186/s40689-015-0002-1.

Park, Hyejune, and Youn-kyung Kim. “An Empirical Test of the Triple Bottom Line of Customer-Centric Sustainability: The Case of Fast Fashion.” Fashion and Textiles; Heidelberg, vol. 3, no. 1, Dec. 2016, pp. 1–18. ProQuest, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40691-016-0077-6.

Perkins, Lewis. “Running Circles Around Unsustainable Textile Practices.” WWD: Women’s Wear Daily; Los Angeles, vol. 211, no. 25, June 2016, p. 66.

Shen, Bin. “Sustainable Fashion Supply Chain: Lessons from H&M.” Sustainability, vol. 6, no. 9, 2014, pp. 6236–6249. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.3390/su6096236.

Shilpa, V., and C. Madhavaiah. “Luxury Fashion Goods and Sustainable Consumption Behaviour.” Journal of Marketing Vistas; Hyderabad, vol. 7, no. 2, Dec. 2017, pp. 60–66.

Turker, Duygu, and Ceren Altuntas. “Sustainable Supply Chain Management in the Fast Fashion Industry: An Analysis of Corporate Reports.” European Management Journal; Oxford, vol. 32, no. 5, Oct. 2014, p. 837.

Grace Hall

Project Proposal

26 Jan 2020

What Should I Do With All My Clothes?: A Study of Fast Fashion and Its Global Impact

            With the rise of social media, there has become an increased need for fast fashion brands. Instead of wearing our clothes multiple times, people are more likely to wear a dress once and post a picture in it. Then, because the dress has already been seen, they leave it in their closet collecting dust until its either given away or thrown away. This need for new looks and Instagram’s fancy new ability to buy clothes directly from the app, make consuming cheap clothing easier than ever. But what are the costs of this new form of consumerism? The fast fashion movement has emphasized the customer without regarding the garment being made. Fast fashion companies are under severe scrutiny from both sustainability organizations and human rights protection organizations. While they produce cheap clothes for customers, they make clothes and accessories with fabrics that cannot be recycled, they are made by people who are not paid a living wage, and they are transported internationally unsustainably. This is a hard issue to combat, because to be able to make real change you have to ask consumers to spend more money one clothes and go against fashion norms of wearing the same things more frequently. I believe the general public is not aware of the true environmental and human impact of fast fashion. Thus, my hypothesis is that if more people were aware of the true negative impacts of the fast fashion industry, sustainable fashion brands would be more popular, and people would be more willing to be sustainable consumers. My goal is to create an interactive project that brings awareness to the need for the sustainable fashion industry. I will do this by creating an interactive world map. A user will be able to select one of four garments or accessories, and then starting with the production of the textiles, the user will be able to follow the creation, transportation, and selling of the garment across a world map. With each step there will be a small explanation of what is wrong for the environment or the people making the item to bring awareness to the issues. At the end of the cycle the user will be asked on average how long someone keeps that garment and what they do with it when they decide to remove it from their closet. Hopefully the information from this interactive map will help users understand the importance of supporting sustainable fashion brands and the sustainability movement in general.

            Recently, many scholars have been writing about the benefits of sustainable fashion and social entrepreneurship as ways to combat this issue. I will be mainly pulling from sources found in academic journals or books, accessed through the Davidson library. Many companies fear moving to a “values-driven industry” comes from their worry of “financial uncertainty” (Batist). But many companies are starting in employ intrapreneurs, people who work within a company to bring change (like a sustainability initiative, for example), rather than starting a new company from scratch. Scholars like Henninger study the success of the slow fashion movement, the response to the unsustainable growth of the fast fashion market. Henninger finds that the concept of sustainable fashion is subjective to both the brand and the buyer, making it hard to define but also broad enough to apply to a vast audience. Niinimaki explores the ethical foundations of sustainable fashion, asking what ethics all brands must follow and what ethics are up to interpretation. There is enough scholarly research on this topic to be able to put together a comprehensive research project.

            This is not an easy project proposal. I do not have vast experience with web design or interactive website creation, making the work more extensive because there will be a research component too. There is a possibility that this project will not attract many viewers on its own, but if I feel it is a successful project, I will send it to organizations like the Fashion Transparency Index and Good on You (in hopes that they will promote it!). Both of those organizations judge the sustainability of fashion brands, but their grading systems are very different. They both have large social media followings, showing that there is an interested group who cares about this issue as much as I do. This is a problem worth working on, I feel the project will be finished when it helps change people’s fashion consumption habits, even if that just means making someone think twice before purchasing something from Forever21, for example. I am interested because I, a fashion-conscious college student addicted to social media, am the perfect target for the fast fashion industry, and I know how truly easy it is to get suck. But, there is a point where we as humans need to take responsibility and acknowledge that there are more ways that we can help save the environment than just using metal straws. Time to practice what we preach!

Bibliography:

Batist, Danielle. Incentivizing Sustainable Fashion: Lessons From Social Entrepreneurs. 28 Feb. 2017, https://www.forbes.com/sites/ashoka/2017/02/28/incentivizing-sustainable-fashion-lessons-from-social-entrepreneurs/#1a7a66227d3e.

Bly, Sarah, et al. “Exit from the High Street: An Exploratory Study of Sustainable Fashion Consumption Pioneers.”International Journal of Consumer Studies, vol. 39, no. 2, 2015, pp. 125–135. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.1111/ijcs.12159.

—. “Exit from the High Street: An Exploratory Study of Sustainable Fashion Consumption Pioneers.” International Journal of Consumer Studies, vol. 39, no. 2, 2015, pp. 125–35. Wiley Online Library, doi:10.1111/ijcs.12159.

Choi, Tsan-Ming, and T. C. Edwin Cheng. Sustainable Fashion Supply Chain Management From Sourcing to Retailing. Springer International Publishing, 2015.

D’Anolfo, Marco, et al. “Luxury, Sustainability, and Corporate Social Responsibility: Insights from Fashion Luxury Case Studies and Consumers’ Perceptions.” Sustainable Management of Luxury, edited by Miguel Angel Gardetti, Springer, 2017, pp. 427–48. Springer Link, doi:10.1007/978-981-10-2917-2_20.

Gardetti, Miguel Angel, and Rachida Justo. “Sustainable Luxury Fashion: The Entrepreneurs’ Vision.” Sustainable Management of Luxury, edited by Miguel Angel Gardetti, Springer, 2017, pp. 347–60. Springer Link, doi:10.1007/978-981-10-2917-2_16.

Giacosa, Elisa. “The Family Business Phenomenon as a Means for a Sustainable Business in the Clothing Luxury Business.” Sustainable Management of Luxury, edited by Miguel Angel Gardetti, Springer, 2017, pp. 361–85. Springer Link, doi:10.1007/978-981-10-2917-2_17.

Glausiusz, Josie. “Sustainable Fashion.” Nature, vol. 459, no. 7249, 2009, p. 915. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.1038/459915a.

Henninger, Claudia E., et al. “What Is Sustainable Fashion?” Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management; Bradford, vol. 20, no. 4, 2016, pp. 400–16. ProQuest, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/JFMM-07-2015-0052.

Muthu, Subramanian Senthilkannan. Textiles and Clothing Sustainability Sustainable Fashion and Consumption. Springer Singapore, 2017.

Niinimäki, Kirsi. “Ethical Foundations in Sustainable Fashion.” Textiles and Clothing Sustainability, vol. 1, no. 1, 2015, pp. 1–11. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.1186/s40689-015-0002-1.

—. “Ethical Foundations in Sustainable Fashion.” Textiles and Clothing Sustainability, vol. 1, no. 1, Dec. 2015, p. 3. DOI.org (Crossref), doi:10.1186/s40689-015-0002-1.

Park, Hyejune, and Youn-kyung Kim. “An Empirical Test of the Triple Bottom Line of Customer-Centric Sustainability: The Case of Fast Fashion.” Fashion and Textiles; Heidelberg, vol. 3, no. 1, Dec. 2016, pp. 1–18. ProQuest, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40691-016-0077-6.

Perkins, Lewis. “Running Circles Around Unsustainable Textile Practices.” WWD: Women’s Wear Daily; Los Angeles, vol. 211, no. 25, June 2016, p. 66.

Shen, Bin. “Sustainable Fashion Supply Chain: Lessons from H&M.” Sustainability, vol. 6, no. 9, 2014, pp. 6236–6249. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.3390/su6096236.

Shilpa, V., and C. Madhavaiah. “Luxury Fashion Goods and Sustainable Consumption Behaviour.” Journal of Marketing Vistas; Hyderabad, vol. 7, no. 2, Dec. 2017, pp. 60–66.

Turker, Duygu, and Ceren Altuntas. “Sustainable Supply Chain Management in the Fast Fashion Industry: An Analysis of Corporate Reports.” European Management Journal; Oxford, vol. 32, no. 5, Oct. 2014, p. 837.

Grace Hall

Project Proposal

26 Jan 2020

What Should I Do With All My Clothes?: A Study of Fast Fashion and Its Global Impact

            With the rise of social media, there has become an increased need for fast fashion brands. Instead of wearing our clothes multiple times, people are more likely to wear a dress once and post a picture in it. Then, because the dress has already been seen, they leave it in their closet collecting dust until its either given away or thrown away. This need for new looks and Instagram’s fancy new ability to buy clothes directly from the app, make consuming cheap clothing easier than ever. But what are the costs of this new form of consumerism? The fast fashion movement has emphasized the customer without regarding the garment being made. Fast fashion companies are under severe scrutiny from both sustainability organizations and human rights protection organizations. While they produce cheap clothes for customers, they make clothes and accessories with fabrics that cannot be recycled, they are made by people who are not paid a living wage, and they are transported internationally unsustainably. This is a hard issue to combat, because to be able to make real change you have to ask consumers to spend more money one clothes and go against fashion norms of wearing the same things more frequently. I believe the general public is not aware of the true environmental and human impact of fast fashion. Thus, my hypothesis is that if more people were aware of the true negative impacts of the fast fashion industry, sustainable fashion brands would be more popular, and people would be more willing to be sustainable consumers. My goal is to create an interactive project that brings awareness to the need for the sustainable fashion industry. I will do this by creating an interactive world map. A user will be able to select one of four garments or accessories, and then starting with the production of the textiles, the user will be able to follow the creation, transportation, and selling of the garment across a world map. With each step there will be a small explanation of what is wrong for the environment or the people making the item to bring awareness to the issues. At the end of the cycle the user will be asked on average how long someone keeps that garment and what they do with it when they decide to remove it from their closet. Hopefully the information from this interactive map will help users understand the importance of supporting sustainable fashion brands and the sustainability movement in general.

            Recently, many scholars have been writing about the benefits of sustainable fashion and social entrepreneurship as ways to combat this issue. I will be mainly pulling from sources found in academic journals or books, accessed through the Davidson library. Many companies fear moving to a “values-driven industry” comes from their worry of “financial uncertainty” (Batist). But many companies are starting in employ intrapreneurs, people who work within a company to bring change (like a sustainability initiative, for example), rather than starting a new company from scratch. Scholars like Henninger study the success of the slow fashion movement, the response to the unsustainable growth of the fast fashion market. Henninger finds that the concept of sustainable fashion is subjective to both the brand and the buyer, making it hard to define but also broad enough to apply to a vast audience. Niinimaki explores the ethical foundations of sustainable fashion, asking what ethics all brands must follow and what ethics are up to interpretation. There is enough scholarly research on this topic to be able to put together a comprehensive research project.

            This is not an easy project proposal. I do not have vast experience with web design or interactive website creation, making the work more extensive because there will be a research component too. There is a possibility that this project will not attract many viewers on its own, but if I feel it is a successful project, I will send it to organizations like the Fashion Transparency Index and Good on You (in hopes that they will promote it!). Both of those organizations judge the sustainability of fashion brands, but their grading systems are very different. They both have large social media followings, showing that there is an interested group who cares about this issue as much as I do. This is a problem worth working on, I feel the project will be finished when it helps change people’s fashion consumption habits, even if that just means making someone think twice before purchasing something from Forever21, for example. I am interested because I, a fashion-conscious college student addicted to social media, am the perfect target for the fast fashion industry, and I know how truly easy it is to get suck. But, there is a point where we as humans need to take responsibility and acknowledge that there are more ways that we can help save the environment than just using metal straws. Time to practice what we preach!

Bibliography:

Batist, Danielle. Incentivizing Sustainable Fashion: Lessons From Social Entrepreneurs. 28 Feb. 2017, https://www.forbes.com/sites/ashoka/2017/02/28/incentivizing-sustainable-fashion-lessons-from-social-entrepreneurs/#1a7a66227d3e.

Bly, Sarah, et al. “Exit from the High Street: An Exploratory Study of Sustainable Fashion Consumption Pioneers.”International Journal of Consumer Studies, vol. 39, no. 2, 2015, pp. 125–135. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.1111/ijcs.12159.

—. “Exit from the High Street: An Exploratory Study of Sustainable Fashion Consumption Pioneers.” International Journal of Consumer Studies, vol. 39, no. 2, 2015, pp. 125–35. Wiley Online Library, doi:10.1111/ijcs.12159.

Choi, Tsan-Ming, and T. C. Edwin Cheng. Sustainable Fashion Supply Chain Management From Sourcing to Retailing. Springer International Publishing, 2015.

D’Anolfo, Marco, et al. “Luxury, Sustainability, and Corporate Social Responsibility: Insights from Fashion Luxury Case Studies and Consumers’ Perceptions.” Sustainable Management of Luxury, edited by Miguel Angel Gardetti, Springer, 2017, pp. 427–48. Springer Link, doi:10.1007/978-981-10-2917-2_20.

Gardetti, Miguel Angel, and Rachida Justo. “Sustainable Luxury Fashion: The Entrepreneurs’ Vision.” Sustainable Management of Luxury, edited by Miguel Angel Gardetti, Springer, 2017, pp. 347–60. Springer Link, doi:10.1007/978-981-10-2917-2_16.

Giacosa, Elisa. “The Family Business Phenomenon as a Means for a Sustainable Business in the Clothing Luxury Business.” Sustainable Management of Luxury, edited by Miguel Angel Gardetti, Springer, 2017, pp. 361–85. Springer Link, doi:10.1007/978-981-10-2917-2_17.

Glausiusz, Josie. “Sustainable Fashion.” Nature, vol. 459, no. 7249, 2009, p. 915. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.1038/459915a.

Henninger, Claudia E., et al. “What Is Sustainable Fashion?” Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management; Bradford, vol. 20, no. 4, 2016, pp. 400–16. ProQuest, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/JFMM-07-2015-0052.

Muthu, Subramanian Senthilkannan. Textiles and Clothing Sustainability Sustainable Fashion and Consumption. Springer Singapore, 2017.

Niinimäki, Kirsi. “Ethical Foundations in Sustainable Fashion.” Textiles and Clothing Sustainability, vol. 1, no. 1, 2015, pp. 1–11. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.1186/s40689-015-0002-1.

—. “Ethical Foundations in Sustainable Fashion.” Textiles and Clothing Sustainability, vol. 1, no. 1, Dec. 2015, p. 3. DOI.org (Crossref), doi:10.1186/s40689-015-0002-1.

Park, Hyejune, and Youn-kyung Kim. “An Empirical Test of the Triple Bottom Line of Customer-Centric Sustainability: The Case of Fast Fashion.” Fashion and Textiles; Heidelberg, vol. 3, no. 1, Dec. 2016, pp. 1–18. ProQuest, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40691-016-0077-6.

Perkins, Lewis. “Running Circles Around Unsustainable Textile Practices.” WWD: Women’s Wear Daily; Los Angeles, vol. 211, no. 25, June 2016, p. 66.

Shen, Bin. “Sustainable Fashion Supply Chain: Lessons from H&M.” Sustainability, vol. 6, no. 9, 2014, pp. 6236–6249. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.3390/su6096236.

Shilpa, V., and C. Madhavaiah. “Luxury Fashion Goods and Sustainable Consumption Behaviour.” Journal of Marketing Vistas; Hyderabad, vol. 7, no. 2, Dec. 2017, pp. 60–66.

Turker, Duygu, and Ceren Altuntas. “Sustainable Supply Chain Management in the Fast Fashion Industry: An Analysis of Corporate Reports.” European Management Journal; Oxford, vol. 32, no. 5, Oct. 2014, p. 837.

Grace Hall

Project Proposal

26 Jan 2020

What Should I Do With All My Clothes?: A Study of Fast Fashion and Its Global Impact

            With the rise of social media, there has become an increased need for fast fashion brands. Instead of wearing our clothes multiple times, people are more likely to wear a dress once and post a picture in it. Then, because the dress has already been seen, they leave it in their closet collecting dust until its either given away or thrown away. This need for new looks and Instagram’s fancy new ability to buy clothes directly from the app, make consuming cheap clothing easier than ever. But what are the costs of this new form of consumerism? The fast fashion movement has emphasized the customer without regarding the garment being made. Fast fashion companies are under severe scrutiny from both sustainability organizations and human rights protection organizations. While they produce cheap clothes for customers, they make clothes and accessories with fabrics that cannot be recycled, they are made by people who are not paid a living wage, and they are transported internationally unsustainably. This is a hard issue to combat, because to be able to make real change you have to ask consumers to spend more money one clothes and go against fashion norms of wearing the same things more frequently. I believe the general public is not aware of the true environmental and human impact of fast fashion. Thus, my hypothesis is that if more people were aware of the true negative impacts of the fast fashion industry, sustainable fashion brands would be more popular, and people would be more willing to be sustainable consumers. My goal is to create an interactive project that brings awareness to the need for the sustainable fashion industry. I will do this by creating an interactive world map. A user will be able to select one of four garments or accessories, and then starting with the production of the textiles, the user will be able to follow the creation, transportation, and selling of the garment across a world map. With each step there will be a small explanation of what is wrong for the environment or the people making the item to bring awareness to the issues. At the end of the cycle the user will be asked on average how long someone keeps that garment and what they do with it when they decide to remove it from their closet. Hopefully the information from this interactive map will help users understand the importance of supporting sustainable fashion brands and the sustainability movement in general.

            Recently, many scholars have been writing about the benefits of sustainable fashion and social entrepreneurship as ways to combat this issue. I will be mainly pulling from sources found in academic journals or books, accessed through the Davidson library. Many companies fear moving to a “values-driven industry” comes from their worry of “financial uncertainty” (Batist). But many companies are starting in employ intrapreneurs, people who work within a company to bring change (like a sustainability initiative, for example), rather than starting a new company from scratch. Scholars like Henninger study the success of the slow fashion movement, the response to the unsustainable growth of the fast fashion market. Henninger finds that the concept of sustainable fashion is subjective to both the brand and the buyer, making it hard to define but also broad enough to apply to a vast audience. Niinimaki explores the ethical foundations of sustainable fashion, asking what ethics all brands must follow and what ethics are up to interpretation. There is enough scholarly research on this topic to be able to put together a comprehensive research project.

            This is not an easy project proposal. I do not have vast experience with web design or interactive website creation, making the work more extensive because there will be a research component too. There is a possibility that this project will not attract many viewers on its own, but if I feel it is a successful project, I will send it to organizations like the Fashion Transparency Index and Good on You (in hopes that they will promote it!). Both of those organizations judge the sustainability of fashion brands, but their grading systems are very different. They both have large social media followings, showing that there is an interested group who cares about this issue as much as I do. This is a problem worth working on, I feel the project will be finished when it helps change people’s fashion consumption habits, even if that just means making someone think twice before purchasing something from Forever21, for example. I am interested because I, a fashion-conscious college student addicted to social media, am the perfect target for the fast fashion industry, and I know how truly easy it is to get suck. But, there is a point where we as humans need to take responsibility and acknowledge that there are more ways that we can help save the environment than just using metal straws. Time to practice what we preach!

Bibliography:

Batist, Danielle. Incentivizing Sustainable Fashion: Lessons From Social Entrepreneurs. 28 Feb. 2017, https://www.forbes.com/sites/ashoka/2017/02/28/incentivizing-sustainable-fashion-lessons-from-social-entrepreneurs/#1a7a66227d3e.

Bly, Sarah, et al. “Exit from the High Street: An Exploratory Study of Sustainable Fashion Consumption Pioneers.”International Journal of Consumer Studies, vol. 39, no. 2, 2015, pp. 125–135. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.1111/ijcs.12159.

—. “Exit from the High Street: An Exploratory Study of Sustainable Fashion Consumption Pioneers.” International Journal of Consumer Studies, vol. 39, no. 2, 2015, pp. 125–35. Wiley Online Library, doi:10.1111/ijcs.12159.

Choi, Tsan-Ming, and T. C. Edwin Cheng. Sustainable Fashion Supply Chain Management From Sourcing to Retailing. Springer International Publishing, 2015.

D’Anolfo, Marco, et al. “Luxury, Sustainability, and Corporate Social Responsibility: Insights from Fashion Luxury Case Studies and Consumers’ Perceptions.” Sustainable Management of Luxury, edited by Miguel Angel Gardetti, Springer, 2017, pp. 427–48. Springer Link, doi:10.1007/978-981-10-2917-2_20.

Gardetti, Miguel Angel, and Rachida Justo. “Sustainable Luxury Fashion: The Entrepreneurs’ Vision.” Sustainable Management of Luxury, edited by Miguel Angel Gardetti, Springer, 2017, pp. 347–60. Springer Link, doi:10.1007/978-981-10-2917-2_16.

Giacosa, Elisa. “The Family Business Phenomenon as a Means for a Sustainable Business in the Clothing Luxury Business.” Sustainable Management of Luxury, edited by Miguel Angel Gardetti, Springer, 2017, pp. 361–85. Springer Link, doi:10.1007/978-981-10-2917-2_17.

Glausiusz, Josie. “Sustainable Fashion.” Nature, vol. 459, no. 7249, 2009, p. 915. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.1038/459915a.

Henninger, Claudia E., et al. “What Is Sustainable Fashion?” Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management; Bradford, vol. 20, no. 4, 2016, pp. 400–16. ProQuest, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/JFMM-07-2015-0052.

Muthu, Subramanian Senthilkannan. Textiles and Clothing Sustainability Sustainable Fashion and Consumption. Springer Singapore, 2017.

Niinimäki, Kirsi. “Ethical Foundations in Sustainable Fashion.” Textiles and Clothing Sustainability, vol. 1, no. 1, 2015, pp. 1–11. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.1186/s40689-015-0002-1.

—. “Ethical Foundations in Sustainable Fashion.” Textiles and Clothing Sustainability, vol. 1, no. 1, Dec. 2015, p. 3. DOI.org (Crossref), doi:10.1186/s40689-015-0002-1.

Park, Hyejune, and Youn-kyung Kim. “An Empirical Test of the Triple Bottom Line of Customer-Centric Sustainability: The Case of Fast Fashion.” Fashion and Textiles; Heidelberg, vol. 3, no. 1, Dec. 2016, pp. 1–18. ProQuest, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40691-016-0077-6.

Perkins, Lewis. “Running Circles Around Unsustainable Textile Practices.” WWD: Women’s Wear Daily; Los Angeles, vol. 211, no. 25, June 2016, p. 66.

Shen, Bin. “Sustainable Fashion Supply Chain: Lessons from H&M.” Sustainability, vol. 6, no. 9, 2014, pp. 6236–6249. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.3390/su6096236.

Shilpa, V., and C. Madhavaiah. “Luxury Fashion Goods and Sustainable Consumption Behaviour.” Journal of Marketing Vistas; Hyderabad, vol. 7, no. 2, Dec. 2017, pp. 60–66.

Turker, Duygu, and Ceren Altuntas. “Sustainable Supply Chain Management in the Fast Fashion Industry: An Analysis of Corporate Reports.” European Management Journal; Oxford, vol. 32, no. 5, Oct. 2014, p. 837.

Grace Hall

Project Proposal

26 Jan 2020

What Should I Do With All My Clothes?: A Study of Fast Fashion and Its Global Impact

            With the rise of social media, there has become an increased need for fast fashion brands. Instead of wearing our clothes multiple times, people are more likely to wear a dress once and post a picture in it. Then, because the dress has already been seen, they leave it in their closet collecting dust until its either given away or thrown away. This need for new looks and Instagram’s fancy new ability to buy clothes directly from the app, make consuming cheap clothing easier than ever. But what are the costs of this new form of consumerism? The fast fashion movement has emphasized the customer without regarding the garment being made. Fast fashion companies are under severe scrutiny from both sustainability organizations and human rights protection organizations. While they produce cheap clothes for customers, they make clothes and accessories with fabrics that cannot be recycled, they are made by people who are not paid a living wage, and they are transported internationally unsustainably. This is a hard issue to combat, because to be able to make real change you have to ask consumers to spend more money one clothes and go against fashion norms of wearing the same things more frequently. I believe the general public is not aware of the true environmental and human impact of fast fashion. Thus, my hypothesis is that if more people were aware of the true negative impacts of the fast fashion industry, sustainable fashion brands would be more popular, and people would be more willing to be sustainable consumers. My goal is to create an interactive project that brings awareness to the need for the sustainable fashion industry. I will do this by creating an interactive world map. A user will be able to select one of four garments or accessories, and then starting with the production of the textiles, the user will be able to follow the creation, transportation, and selling of the garment across a world map. With each step there will be a small explanation of what is wrong for the environment or the people making the item to bring awareness to the issues. At the end of the cycle the user will be asked on average how long someone keeps that garment and what they do with it when they decide to remove it from their closet. Hopefully the information from this interactive map will help users understand the importance of supporting sustainable fashion brands and the sustainability movement in general.

            Recently, many scholars have been writing about the benefits of sustainable fashion and social entrepreneurship as ways to combat this issue. I will be mainly pulling from sources found in academic journals or books, accessed through the Davidson library. Many companies fear moving to a “values-driven industry” comes from their worry of “financial uncertainty” (Batist). But many companies are starting in employ intrapreneurs, people who work within a company to bring change (like a sustainability initiative, for example), rather than starting a new company from scratch. Scholars like Henninger study the success of the slow fashion movement, the response to the unsustainable growth of the fast fashion market. Henninger finds that the concept of sustainable fashion is subjective to both the brand and the buyer, making it hard to define but also broad enough to apply to a vast audience. Niinimaki explores the ethical foundations of sustainable fashion, asking what ethics all brands must follow and what ethics are up to interpretation. There is enough scholarly research on this topic to be able to put together a comprehensive research project.

            This is not an easy project proposal. I do not have vast experience with web design or interactive website creation, making the work more extensive because there will be a research component too. There is a possibility that this project will not attract many viewers on its own, but if I feel it is a successful project, I will send it to organizations like the Fashion Transparency Index and Good on You (in hopes that they will promote it!). Both of those organizations judge the sustainability of fashion brands, but their grading systems are very different. They both have large social media followings, showing that there is an interested group who cares about this issue as much as I do. This is a problem worth working on, I feel the project will be finished when it helps change people’s fashion consumption habits, even if that just means making someone think twice before purchasing something from Forever21, for example. I am interested because I, a fashion-conscious college student addicted to social media, am the perfect target for the fast fashion industry, and I know how truly easy it is to get suck. But, there is a point where we as humans need to take responsibility and acknowledge that there are more ways that we can help save the environment than just using metal straws. Time to practice what we preach!

Bibliography:

Batist, Danielle. Incentivizing Sustainable Fashion: Lessons From Social Entrepreneurs. 28 Feb. 2017, https://www.forbes.com/sites/ashoka/2017/02/28/incentivizing-sustainable-fashion-lessons-from-social-entrepreneurs/#1a7a66227d3e.

Bly, Sarah, et al. “Exit from the High Street: An Exploratory Study of Sustainable Fashion Consumption Pioneers.”International Journal of Consumer Studies, vol. 39, no. 2, 2015, pp. 125–135. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.1111/ijcs.12159.

—. “Exit from the High Street: An Exploratory Study of Sustainable Fashion Consumption Pioneers.” International Journal of Consumer Studies, vol. 39, no. 2, 2015, pp. 125–35. Wiley Online Library, doi:10.1111/ijcs.12159.

Choi, Tsan-Ming, and T. C. Edwin Cheng. Sustainable Fashion Supply Chain Management From Sourcing to Retailing. Springer International Publishing, 2015.

D’Anolfo, Marco, et al. “Luxury, Sustainability, and Corporate Social Responsibility: Insights from Fashion Luxury Case Studies and Consumers’ Perceptions.” Sustainable Management of Luxury, edited by Miguel Angel Gardetti, Springer, 2017, pp. 427–48. Springer Link, doi:10.1007/978-981-10-2917-2_20.

Gardetti, Miguel Angel, and Rachida Justo. “Sustainable Luxury Fashion: The Entrepreneurs’ Vision.” Sustainable Management of Luxury, edited by Miguel Angel Gardetti, Springer, 2017, pp. 347–60. Springer Link, doi:10.1007/978-981-10-2917-2_16.

Giacosa, Elisa. “The Family Business Phenomenon as a Means for a Sustainable Business in the Clothing Luxury Business.” Sustainable Management of Luxury, edited by Miguel Angel Gardetti, Springer, 2017, pp. 361–85. Springer Link, doi:10.1007/978-981-10-2917-2_17.

Glausiusz, Josie. “Sustainable Fashion.” Nature, vol. 459, no. 7249, 2009, p. 915. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.1038/459915a.

Henninger, Claudia E., et al. “What Is Sustainable Fashion?” Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management; Bradford, vol. 20, no. 4, 2016, pp. 400–16. ProQuest, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/JFMM-07-2015-0052.

Muthu, Subramanian Senthilkannan. Textiles and Clothing Sustainability Sustainable Fashion and Consumption. Springer Singapore, 2017.

Niinimäki, Kirsi. “Ethical Foundations in Sustainable Fashion.” Textiles and Clothing Sustainability, vol. 1, no. 1, 2015, pp. 1–11. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.1186/s40689-015-0002-1.

—. “Ethical Foundations in Sustainable Fashion.” Textiles and Clothing Sustainability, vol. 1, no. 1, Dec. 2015, p. 3. DOI.org (Crossref), doi:10.1186/s40689-015-0002-1.

Park, Hyejune, and Youn-kyung Kim. “An Empirical Test of the Triple Bottom Line of Customer-Centric Sustainability: The Case of Fast Fashion.” Fashion and Textiles; Heidelberg, vol. 3, no. 1, Dec. 2016, pp. 1–18. ProQuest, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40691-016-0077-6.

Perkins, Lewis. “Running Circles Around Unsustainable Textile Practices.” WWD: Women’s Wear Daily; Los Angeles, vol. 211, no. 25, June 2016, p. 66.

Shen, Bin. “Sustainable Fashion Supply Chain: Lessons from H&M.” Sustainability, vol. 6, no. 9, 2014, pp. 6236–6249. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.3390/su6096236.

Shilpa, V., and C. Madhavaiah. “Luxury Fashion Goods and Sustainable Consumption Behaviour.” Journal of Marketing Vistas; Hyderabad, vol. 7, no. 2, Dec. 2017, pp. 60–66.

Turker, Duygu, and Ceren Altuntas. “Sustainable Supply Chain Management in the Fast Fashion Industry: An Analysis of Corporate Reports.” European Management Journal; Oxford, vol. 32, no. 5, Oct. 2014, p. 837.

Grace Hall

Project Proposal

26 Jan 2020

What Should I Do With All My Clothes?: A Study of Fast Fashion and Its Global Impact

            With the rise of social media, there has become an increased need for fast fashion brands. Instead of wearing our clothes multiple times, people are more likely to wear a dress once and post a picture in it. Then, because the dress has already been seen, they leave it in their closet collecting dust until its either given away or thrown away. This need for new looks and Instagram’s fancy new ability to buy clothes directly from the app, make consuming cheap clothing easier than ever. But what are the costs of this new form of consumerism? The fast fashion movement has emphasized the customer without regarding the garment being made. Fast fashion companies are under severe scrutiny from both sustainability organizations and human rights protection organizations. While they produce cheap clothes for customers, they make clothes and accessories with fabrics that cannot be recycled, they are made by people who are not paid a living wage, and they are transported internationally unsustainably. This is a hard issue to combat, because to be able to make real change you have to ask consumers to spend more money one clothes and go against fashion norms of wearing the same things more frequently. I believe the general public is not aware of the true environmental and human impact of fast fashion. Thus, my hypothesis is that if more people were aware of the true negative impacts of the fast fashion industry, sustainable fashion brands would be more popular, and people would be more willing to be sustainable consumers. My goal is to create an interactive project that brings awareness to the need for the sustainable fashion industry. I will do this by creating an interactive world map. A user will be able to select one of four garments or accessories, and then starting with the production of the textiles, the user will be able to follow the creation, transportation, and selling of the garment across a world map. With each step there will be a small explanation of what is wrong for the environment or the people making the item to bring awareness to the issues. At the end of the cycle the user will be asked on average how long someone keeps that garment and what they do with it when they decide to remove it from their closet. Hopefully the information from this interactive map will help users understand the importance of supporting sustainable fashion brands and the sustainability movement in general.

            Recently, many scholars have been writing about the benefits of sustainable fashion and social entrepreneurship as ways to combat this issue. I will be mainly pulling from sources found in academic journals or books, accessed through the Davidson library. Many companies fear moving to a “values-driven industry” comes from their worry of “financial uncertainty” (Batist). But many companies are starting in employ intrapreneurs, people who work within a company to bring change (like a sustainability initiative, for example), rather than starting a new company from scratch. Scholars like Henninger study the success of the slow fashion movement, the response to the unsustainable growth of the fast fashion market. Henninger finds that the concept of sustainable fashion is subjective to both the brand and the buyer, making it hard to define but also broad enough to apply to a vast audience. Niinimaki explores the ethical foundations of sustainable fashion, asking what ethics all brands must follow and what ethics are up to interpretation. There is enough scholarly research on this topic to be able to put together a comprehensive research project.

            This is not an easy project proposal. I do not have vast experience with web design or interactive website creation, making the work more extensive because there will be a research component too. There is a possibility that this project will not attract many viewers on its own, but if I feel it is a successful project, I will send it to organizations like the Fashion Transparency Index and Good on You (in hopes that they will promote it!). Both of those organizations judge the sustainability of fashion brands, but their grading systems are very different. They both have large social media followings, showing that there is an interested group who cares about this issue as much as I do. This is a problem worth working on, I feel the project will be finished when it helps change people’s fashion consumption habits, even if that just means making someone think twice before purchasing something from Forever21, for example. I am interested because I, a fashion-conscious college student addicted to social media, am the perfect target for the fast fashion industry, and I know how truly easy it is to get suck. But, there is a point where we as humans need to take responsibility and acknowledge that there are more ways that we can help save the environment than just using metal straws. Time to practice what we preach!

Bibliography:

Batist, Danielle. Incentivizing Sustainable Fashion: Lessons From Social Entrepreneurs. 28 Feb. 2017, https://www.forbes.com/sites/ashoka/2017/02/28/incentivizing-sustainable-fashion-lessons-from-social-entrepreneurs/#1a7a66227d3e.

Bly, Sarah, et al. “Exit from the High Street: An Exploratory Study of Sustainable Fashion Consumption Pioneers.”International Journal of Consumer Studies, vol. 39, no. 2, 2015, pp. 125–135. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.1111/ijcs.12159.

—. “Exit from the High Street: An Exploratory Study of Sustainable Fashion Consumption Pioneers.” International Journal of Consumer Studies, vol. 39, no. 2, 2015, pp. 125–35. Wiley Online Library, doi:10.1111/ijcs.12159.

Choi, Tsan-Ming, and T. C. Edwin Cheng. Sustainable Fashion Supply Chain Management From Sourcing to Retailing. Springer International Publishing, 2015.

D’Anolfo, Marco, et al. “Luxury, Sustainability, and Corporate Social Responsibility: Insights from Fashion Luxury Case Studies and Consumers’ Perceptions.” Sustainable Management of Luxury, edited by Miguel Angel Gardetti, Springer, 2017, pp. 427–48. Springer Link, doi:10.1007/978-981-10-2917-2_20.

Gardetti, Miguel Angel, and Rachida Justo. “Sustainable Luxury Fashion: The Entrepreneurs’ Vision.” Sustainable Management of Luxury, edited by Miguel Angel Gardetti, Springer, 2017, pp. 347–60. Springer Link, doi:10.1007/978-981-10-2917-2_16.

Giacosa, Elisa. “The Family Business Phenomenon as a Means for a Sustainable Business in the Clothing Luxury Business.” Sustainable Management of Luxury, edited by Miguel Angel Gardetti, Springer, 2017, pp. 361–85. Springer Link, doi:10.1007/978-981-10-2917-2_17.

Glausiusz, Josie. “Sustainable Fashion.” Nature, vol. 459, no. 7249, 2009, p. 915. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.1038/459915a.

Henninger, Claudia E., et al. “What Is Sustainable Fashion?” Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management; Bradford, vol. 20, no. 4, 2016, pp. 400–16. ProQuest, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/JFMM-07-2015-0052.

Muthu, Subramanian Senthilkannan. Textiles and Clothing Sustainability Sustainable Fashion and Consumption. Springer Singapore, 2017.

Niinimäki, Kirsi. “Ethical Foundations in Sustainable Fashion.” Textiles and Clothing Sustainability, vol. 1, no. 1, 2015, pp. 1–11. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.1186/s40689-015-0002-1.

—. “Ethical Foundations in Sustainable Fashion.” Textiles and Clothing Sustainability, vol. 1, no. 1, Dec. 2015, p. 3. DOI.org (Crossref), doi:10.1186/s40689-015-0002-1.

Park, Hyejune, and Youn-kyung Kim. “An Empirical Test of the Triple Bottom Line of Customer-Centric Sustainability: The Case of Fast Fashion.” Fashion and Textiles; Heidelberg, vol. 3, no. 1, Dec. 2016, pp. 1–18. ProQuest, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40691-016-0077-6.

Perkins, Lewis. “Running Circles Around Unsustainable Textile Practices.” WWD: Women’s Wear Daily; Los Angeles, vol. 211, no. 25, June 2016, p. 66.

Shen, Bin. “Sustainable Fashion Supply Chain: Lessons from H&M.” Sustainability, vol. 6, no. 9, 2014, pp. 6236–6249. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.3390/su6096236.

Shilpa, V., and C. Madhavaiah. “Luxury Fashion Goods and Sustainable Consumption Behaviour.” Journal of Marketing Vistas; Hyderabad, vol. 7, no. 2, Dec. 2017, pp. 60–66.

Turker, Duygu, and Ceren Altuntas. “Sustainable Supply Chain Management in the Fast Fashion Industry: An Analysis of Corporate Reports.” European Management Journal; Oxford, vol. 32, no. 5, Oct. 2014, p. 837.

Grace Hall

Project Proposal

26 Jan 2020

What Should I Do With All My Clothes?: A Study of Fast Fashion and Its Global Impact

            With the rise of social media, there has become an increased need for fast fashion brands. Instead of wearing our clothes multiple times, people are more likely to wear a dress once and post a picture in it. Then, because the dress has already been seen, they leave it in their closet collecting dust until its either given away or thrown away. This need for new looks and Instagram’s fancy new ability to buy clothes directly from the app, make consuming cheap clothing easier than ever. But what are the costs of this new form of consumerism? The fast fashion movement has emphasized the customer without regarding the garment being made. Fast fashion companies are under severe scrutiny from both sustainability organizations and human rights protection organizations. While they produce cheap clothes for customers, they make clothes and accessories with fabrics that cannot be recycled, they are made by people who are not paid a living wage, and they are transported internationally unsustainably. This is a hard issue to combat, because to be able to make real change you have to ask consumers to spend more money one clothes and go against fashion norms of wearing the same things more frequently. I believe the general public is not aware of the true environmental and human impact of fast fashion. Thus, my hypothesis is that if more people were aware of the true negative impacts of the fast fashion industry, sustainable fashion brands would be more popular, and people would be more willing to be sustainable consumers. My goal is to create an interactive project that brings awareness to the need for the sustainable fashion industry. I will do this by creating an interactive world map. A user will be able to select one of four garments or accessories, and then starting with the production of the textiles, the user will be able to follow the creation, transportation, and selling of the garment across a world map. With each step there will be a small explanation of what is wrong for the environment or the people making the item to bring awareness to the issues. At the end of the cycle the user will be asked on average how long someone keeps that garment and what they do with it when they decide to remove it from their closet. Hopefully the information from this interactive map will help users understand the importance of supporting sustainable fashion brands and the sustainability movement in general.

            Recently, many scholars have been writing about the benefits of sustainable fashion and social entrepreneurship as ways to combat this issue. I will be mainly pulling from sources found in academic journals or books, accessed through the Davidson library. Many companies fear moving to a “values-driven industry” comes from their worry of “financial uncertainty” (Batist). But many companies are starting in employ intrapreneurs, people who work within a company to bring change (like a sustainability initiative, for example), rather than starting a new company from scratch. Scholars like Henninger study the success of the slow fashion movement, the response to the unsustainable growth of the fast fashion market. Henninger finds that the concept of sustainable fashion is subjective to both the brand and the buyer, making it hard to define but also broad enough to apply to a vast audience. Niinimaki explores the ethical foundations of sustainable fashion, asking what ethics all brands must follow and what ethics are up to interpretation. There is enough scholarly research on this topic to be able to put together a comprehensive research project.

            This is not an easy project proposal. I do not have vast experience with web design or interactive website creation, making the work more extensive because there will be a research component too. There is a possibility that this project will not attract many viewers on its own, but if I feel it is a successful project, I will send it to organizations like the Fashion Transparency Index and Good on You (in hopes that they will promote it!). Both of those organizations judge the sustainability of fashion brands, but their grading systems are very different. They both have large social media followings, showing that there is an interested group who cares about this issue as much as I do. This is a problem worth working on, I feel the project will be finished when it helps change people’s fashion consumption habits, even if that just means making someone think twice before purchasing something from Forever21, for example. I am interested because I, a fashion-conscious college student addicted to social media, am the perfect target for the fast fashion industry, and I know how truly easy it is to get suck. But, there is a point where we as humans need to take responsibility and acknowledge that there are more ways that we can help save the environment than just using metal straws. Time to practice what we preach!

Bibliography:

Batist, Danielle. Incentivizing Sustainable Fashion: Lessons From Social Entrepreneurs. 28 Feb. 2017, https://www.forbes.com/sites/ashoka/2017/02/28/incentivizing-sustainable-fashion-lessons-from-social-entrepreneurs/#1a7a66227d3e.

Bly, Sarah, et al. “Exit from the High Street: An Exploratory Study of Sustainable Fashion Consumption Pioneers.”International Journal of Consumer Studies, vol. 39, no. 2, 2015, pp. 125–135. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.1111/ijcs.12159.

—. “Exit from the High Street: An Exploratory Study of Sustainable Fashion Consumption Pioneers.” International Journal of Consumer Studies, vol. 39, no. 2, 2015, pp. 125–35. Wiley Online Library, doi:10.1111/ijcs.12159.

Choi, Tsan-Ming, and T. C. Edwin Cheng. Sustainable Fashion Supply Chain Management From Sourcing to Retailing. Springer International Publishing, 2015.

D’Anolfo, Marco, et al. “Luxury, Sustainability, and Corporate Social Responsibility: Insights from Fashion Luxury Case Studies and Consumers’ Perceptions.” Sustainable Management of Luxury, edited by Miguel Angel Gardetti, Springer, 2017, pp. 427–48. Springer Link, doi:10.1007/978-981-10-2917-2_20.

Gardetti, Miguel Angel, and Rachida Justo. “Sustainable Luxury Fashion: The Entrepreneurs’ Vision.” Sustainable Management of Luxury, edited by Miguel Angel Gardetti, Springer, 2017, pp. 347–60. Springer Link, doi:10.1007/978-981-10-2917-2_16.

Giacosa, Elisa. “The Family Business Phenomenon as a Means for a Sustainable Business in the Clothing Luxury Business.” Sustainable Management of Luxury, edited by Miguel Angel Gardetti, Springer, 2017, pp. 361–85. Springer Link, doi:10.1007/978-981-10-2917-2_17.

Glausiusz, Josie. “Sustainable Fashion.” Nature, vol. 459, no. 7249, 2009, p. 915. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.1038/459915a.

Henninger, Claudia E., et al. “What Is Sustainable Fashion?” Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management; Bradford, vol. 20, no. 4, 2016, pp. 400–16. ProQuest, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/JFMM-07-2015-0052.

Muthu, Subramanian Senthilkannan. Textiles and Clothing Sustainability Sustainable Fashion and Consumption. Springer Singapore, 2017.

Niinimäki, Kirsi. “Ethical Foundations in Sustainable Fashion.” Textiles and Clothing Sustainability, vol. 1, no. 1, 2015, pp. 1–11. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.1186/s40689-015-0002-1.

—. “Ethical Foundations in Sustainable Fashion.” Textiles and Clothing Sustainability, vol. 1, no. 1, Dec. 2015, p. 3. DOI.org (Crossref), doi:10.1186/s40689-015-0002-1.

Park, Hyejune, and Youn-kyung Kim. “An Empirical Test of the Triple Bottom Line of Customer-Centric Sustainability: The Case of Fast Fashion.” Fashion and Textiles; Heidelberg, vol. 3, no. 1, Dec. 2016, pp. 1–18. ProQuest, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40691-016-0077-6.

Perkins, Lewis. “Running Circles Around Unsustainable Textile Practices.” WWD: Women’s Wear Daily; Los Angeles, vol. 211, no. 25, June 2016, p. 66.

Shen, Bin. “Sustainable Fashion Supply Chain: Lessons from H&M.” Sustainability, vol. 6, no. 9, 2014, pp. 6236–6249. davidson.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, doi:10.3390/su6096236.

Shilpa, V., and C. Madhavaiah. “Luxury Fashion Goods and Sustainable Consumption Behaviour.” Journal of Marketing Vistas; Hyderabad, vol. 7, no. 2, Dec. 2017, pp. 60–66.

Turker, Duygu, and Ceren Altuntas. “Sustainable Supply Chain Management in the Fast Fashion Industry: An Analysis of Corporate Reports.” European Management Journal; Oxford, vol. 32, no. 5, Oct. 2014, p. 837.