Kick Out Fast Fashion

Integrating Ethical Fashion into a Student Population
Euan MacLennan, Amy Cairns & Sindhu Prathapan

Introduction

WHAT IS THE PROBLEM? 

“Fashion and Sustainability. These are two very different things. Fashion is sexy, addictive, exclusive and very fast moving. Sustainability, on the other hand, is about slowness, care, flourishing and responsibility.” This is a quotation taken from Clara Vuletich’s TEDx talk, where she dissects Fast Fashion. It is painfully clear that the current fashion industry has not been and cannot be sustainable. 

WHY IS IT A PROBLEM?

The literature surrounding the Fast Fashion industry presents a clear dichotomy between two movements. The first, is the fast fashion business model, where the gluttonous consumption of cheap, disposable garments is consistently and unendingly on the rise. By 2030, global apparel consumption is expected to rise by 63% to 102 million tons, as consumers attempt to keep up with the shift from trend to trend. It is this overconsumption and the consequences that follow that we draw attention to when we use terms such as ‘unsustainable’ and ‘unethical’ fashion. The problem is: the overconsumption cannot keep going, and in fact, for it to carry on would be cruel to humans, animals and the earth. 

Below, the key flaws of the fast fashion industry are highlighted.

o    Abysmal labour conditions and pay of sweatshop workers. Only 2% of workers earn a living wage.

o    Mass extraction of non-renewable resources.

o    Cheap, toxic textile dyes massively pollute clean water.

o    Contribution to global carbon emissions during production of garments (10% of all annual carbon emissions are related to fast fashion - more than international flights and maritime shipping combined).

o    Incineration and landfill concerns. Incineration of discarded clothes produces dangerous air pollution; and at landfill sites it takes 80 years for clothing to break down (235 million items of clothing were sent to the UK landfill in 2017). 

The consensus is clear, it is simply untenable to carry on like this, but big businesses within the industry continue to prioritise profit at all costs.

THE DEMOGRAPHIC

The dichotomous movement, and thus, our implementation, is this: Sustainable Fashion. Paradoxically, ethical and sustainable consumption seems to be growing alongside the Fast Fashion industry, challenging the industry with core ecological and compassionate values. Vuletich explains that these principles combat the unsustainable fatal flaws of fast fashion, discussed above. The take home message from the TEDx talk is this: buy second hand, donate clothing, research ethical brands, buy better quality and buy smart. Most of all, this message seems to resonate with younger people.

The current zeitgeist is certainly one of awareness and responsibility for both social and environmental issues. One source refers to the shift to sustainable and ethical fashion as a ‘global fashion trend’, and in fact notes that Generations Z and Y (Millennials) favour authenticity and transparency from brands. Brands must be entirely truthful about the products they supply as well as representing the same ethics and ideals as the consumers, which in recent years, have seen a shift to the core principles of sustainability: slowness, care, flourishing and responsibility. Sustainable and ethical consumption is something that is perhaps easier to stay on top of in recent years, with websites including goodonyou.eco and the Ethical Fashion Guide, which provide consumers with information about a brand’s social responsibility and environmental policies. Ethical and transparent brands are at the fingertips of the younger generation, and this, coupled with the ever increasing awareness of environmental and social issues, makes it far easier for people to choose ethical consumption. In fact, we have hypothesised the inhibiting factors are awareness of how to shop ethically, and why to shop ethically. 

When thinking about current cultural norms, we can see that people appreciate vintage and second-hand fashion. We think this is in part related to the same shared cultural nostalgia we see in pop-culture of the last 10 years, for example, the boom in 80’s and 90’s related nostalgia. Examples of this include the re-emergence of popular 80’s Hollywood properties such as IT, Ghostbusters, Star Wars and other new movies and TV shows that emulate the 80’s aesthetic - most notably Netflix’s Stranger Things. This is thought to be happening due to a phenomenon known as the ‘30-Year Cycle’, where contemporary culture starts to integrate aspects of culture from 30 years ago, as seen with homages and reboots of 80's tropes, trends and media. This occurs due to those who consumed 80’s media as children becoming those who create the art and media 30 years on, that influences the masses. As a result, current media has been swamped by 80’s fashion and trends, meaning more people are interested in purchasing vintage or used items - a 2018 survey by ThredUp found 64% of women would consider buying second-hand clothes, compared with only 45% in 2016.

Some additional thoughts on why people who enjoy vintage and second-hand fashion, is as follows: Individuality and Personality: where fast fashion is generic and void of personalisation, repurposed and one-off clothes are unique and stand-out; Timelessness: pieces from the past can represent classic trends and movements in fashion that feel like they will always be in style, transcending fast fads; and Soul and History: vintage pieces are steeped in history and a certain worn-in, well-loved-ness - there is something truly special about keeping the history and artistry of a garment alive. 

The question is, then, why are more people not shopping ethically? And, if some people make the shift to sustainable fashion, how can we expand this movement? 

THE INTERVENTION 

It seems clear that although there is a demand for ethical fashion, there is always some barrier in the way. For example, if the demand for ethical fashion is related to monetary cheapness, there is some behavioural cost related to perceived difficulty of ethical shopping i.e. finding realtors. Similarly, if the demand is related to style, there seems to be a cheap easy alternative (faux vintage style clothes from familiar fast fashion realtors). Moreover, if the demand for sustainable fashion is related to some intrinsic or social desire to be more ethical and sustainable, then the barrier preventing this must be some dissonance between the perceived weight of the issues or a perceived ability to implement any actual change. Take for example, the issue of lack of exposure; when we see issues less frequently, they seem more trivial, as they are not recalled as easily as threats we are exposed to more regularly. This is also known as the availability heuristic.

Our task, then, is to increase awareness of topics surrounding sustainability in the fashion industry - relating to monetary cost, style and morality, and a behaviour change should follow. 

What we mean by this, is by making people’s awareness of the ethical benefits of fast fashion part of their everyday life, or giving them power to make change and providing clear implementations - they’re more likely to make the switch to sustainable fashion. We exploit mere exposure biases by putting ethical shopping tips, techniques, styles, etc., in people’s line of vision. 

A suitable way to do this, in line with our research and the scale of the project is through social media. Social media exposure to topics should prime people to think about and value them more, by increasing their mental availability. Increasing sustainability is operationalised as using more second-hand outlets. Below, we have documented the relevant methods and steps we took towards our “Kick Out Fast Fashion” campaign. 

A nice starting point seemed to be to work on exposing people to sustainable fashion outlets through the same platform they might be exposed to fast fashion, thus our attempt to convince second-hand stores (specifically charity shops) began. 

Methods

STAGE 1: INITIAL OUTLINES, METHODS AND TECHNIQUES

In order to successfully increase use of second-hand shops among students, we came up with a two step plan:

1) Contact local charity shops in Coventry and Leamington Spa, encouraging them to set up an Instagram page where they can post pictures of current items in stock.

 Pictured Right: Euan posting letters to charity shops

2) We would then advertise these Instagram pages to students across social media and on posters around campus which include statistics on how fast fashion affects the environment, and more tangible incentives to use these shops (such as saving money and dressing in a vintage style). 

Below is an annotated version of the letter/email we sent out, highlighting the persuasive techniques we used to maximise the chance of a successful behaviour change. 

a) Foot in the Door: This persuasive technique is based on the principle that if an individual were to agree to a small request, they would be more likely to comply with a second, larger request. 

• How we adapted this: Rather than asking an initial small request, we primed the charity shops with a reminder that fast fashion is immoral and that creating an Instagram page is a great opportunity for free advertising and increased sales. By targeting their role as both an ethical charity and a business, they would have to agree with these initial statements and therefore be incentivised to accept our offer to work with them. Declining would cause too much cognitive dissonance: they care about their business and decreasing fast fashion use, so why decline?

b) Ingratiation: With this strategy, by appearing amiable, complementary and establishing common goals and interests; persuasion is more likely to occur. This technique is thought to work, as prosocial behaviour typically occurs within groups rather than between them - so by demonstrating that we have shared goals and support their presence, we establish ourselves as part of their ingroup, increasing the chances of persuasion.

• How we adapted this: We outlined why we are taking on this project; that we care about decreasing fast fashion use and promoting ethical fashion choices to student populations - ideals that charity shops can identify with. In addition to this, we explained in our letters that we support and admire the work of each organisation we were contacting, providing specific examples to make it clear our message is genuine. For example, when contacting the British Red Cross we wrote “Alongside the issue of fast fashion, we care about the vision put forward by The British Red Cross, supporting vulnerable individuals in the UK and internationally. We have found the Red Cross’ mission to support both the wellbeing of the local community, whilst also providing food, health care and water to third world countries incredibly inspiring.”

c) Low-Balling: This route of persuasion is carried out by providing an initial attractive offer to the target. Once they have agreed to this course of action, the offer is then revealed to have hidden consequences. However, as they have already agreed to the original offer, they are more likely to comply with the modified request than if the consequences were visible from the start. The classic example of this technique is of car salesmen who initially offers a low price for a car. Once this has been agreed upon, the salesperson then explains there was a mistake and the vehicle is actually worth more. Despite the increase, the buyer is likely to follow through with the sale, because of the original commitment. Declining would have too great a social cost - “I’ve already agreed to buy the car from him, I can’t back out now!”.

• How we adapted this: In our letter, we kept the description of what we were asking of the charity shops as brief, simple and clear as possible. We framed our request as the stores needing to only set up an Instagram page and post pictures of clothes. We purposefully left out the finer details such as the sign-up process, which items they should post pictures of, how frequently they should post, and how to use hashtags to increase digital foot-fall. Our plan was to only reveal these details once the charity shops had replied to us, and accepted our initial ‘low-ball’ offer of simply setting up an Instagram account. 

d) Norm of Reciprocity: Reciprocity operates under the assumption that humans will behave prosocially towards others to pay off debts and return favours. When it seems as though others are at their most altruistic towards us, we will do the most in return. There seems to be some internal driving force for reciprocity, not just a social component - as we believe we would not act reciprocally based on cues that seem small or unimportant i.e. a waiter brings us a mint. Yet we are consistently wrong. This is Cialdini’s first rule of persuasion. 

• How we adapted this: by informing the charity shops that we want to share and advertise their business to others free of charge we believed they would be more inclined to help us with our request. Though there is unlikely to be any cognitive ‘thought process’ associated with this, we would expect a behavioural response. People do not typically feel comfortable leaving a favour unreciprocated. If we had just showed support for the organisation in spirit, i.e. “we agree with your values” perhaps we would expect to see reciprocal behaviour on a smaller scale, but by offering the gift of helping the organisation to gain social media presence and increase clientele, we can assume there is a greater chance of them working with us. 

e) Statistics: although use of evidence and statistics is not as effective as other persuasive techniques, we decided to end our letter with this to provide “proof” that advertising online is an effective method to increase sales. Statistics present the speaker as someone with contention and credibility, thus framing the issue as factually sound, and the speaker as competent.  

STAGE 2: CHANGING OUR INITIAL PLAN AND @KICKOUTFASTFASHION

When we talked to the charity shops they explained that the process would be far more complex than we originally hoped. Typically, setting up an Instagram page or doing any online promotion would involve permission from head office. In fact, one shop explained that their charity was in fact trying to cut down on social media presence as they found it was too hard to keep track of all the different locations of their shops, and many stores did not respond to us at all. Thus, our original goal of getting the shops to create their own Instagram accounts was not possible.

Note) though it is not to say the persuasive techniques were entirely useless, it seemed out of the control of the individuals we were dealing with to make this change. 

After meeting as a group we decided the best way to fulfil the aim of integrating second hand shopping into the student population was to set up our own social media presence, without the help of other organisations, thus: we launched an instagram page!

Instagram allows us to use hashtags and capitalise on the existing culture of fashion and style inspiration, as well as reaching our target audience of Gen Y and Gen Z. There are three key components to this stage: 

Pictured Above: a screenshot of the @kickoutfastsafashion account.

Link: https://www.instagram.com/kickoutfastfashion

1) Posts: 

a) Style: specific outfit posts on the account should present Ethical Fashion as something that can be trendy, exciting and desirable to compete with the fast fashion market. We posted pictures of recruited ‘models’ in outfits we put together using variously sourced ethical pieces (shown below). In our captions, and in styling the pieces, we tried to make it clear you don’t have to sacrifice style for sustainability, and that you can find personal and unique pieces you might not see in fast fashion stores. Seeing these outfits first hand actualises how easy it is to switch to sustainable fashion.

(Pictured: Genie Jones)

b) Awareness: As well as outfit posts, we posted bright, simply formatted information bulletins (shown below) including statistics and relevant information framed not only to increase awareness but make people feel a personal connection to the harmful impact of fast fashion. 

2) Branding: 

a) When setting up our instagram account we wanted to choose a username that was short and to the point. Eventually, we settled on @kickoutfastfashion. The brief but clear message of the handle means the account will stick out to students and others who might find the account. 

b) The slogan “for your wallet and the planet” follows suit in so far as it is clear and concise, and gets across our two core principles. 

c) For the same reasons we kept our biography, as can be seen in the profile, brief, honest and transparent. 

3) Promotion: 

a) We designed and displayed 50 posters (shown below) around the university campus in the Humanities and Science Buildings and across different facilities (on site Pub & Library).

 

i) When designing the posters we wanted them to be eye-catching, to convey our message clearly, whilst also encouraging students to follow our instagram account

ii) We chose bright, contrasting colours to make the posters stand out amongst others, with clear labels of where the items are from and our slogan written in a large font. The message that you can dress well, save money and help the planet is all clearly displayed in one image; and these goals can be more easily achieved by following our Instagram account.


b) We promoted the account through two different social media channels: ‘sharing’ the account to university groups on facebook i.e. ‘Warwick Freshers Page 2019’; and using hashtags on the actual posts affiliated with fashion, sustainability, and vintage.

STAGE 3: SOCIAL MEDIA PROMOTION WITH THE BRITISH RED CROSS

Though most stores rejected our proposal, in one case we saw an unintentional but nonetheless exciting example of how the ‘door-in-the-face’ technique might work in real life. The British Red Cross, a charity that provides help and support to marginalised groups in society, said they could not set up an instagram, but still felt working with us would be mutually beneficial (shown below).

The work we did with BRC was related to social media marketing. We met with the Assistant Managers of the store to take promotional pictures of some of their items, and then distribute these to students. The motivation behind these photos was of a similar ilk to our initial idea: they showed the demographic not only what sort of thing was available in stores, but made taking a trip to the store feel tangible - an implementation step of sorts, to increase the likelihood of people shopping in the store.

Once we had a collection of photographs taken on the shop floor, we composed these into 6 marketable posters (shown above) which will be displayed on the BRC Leamington Spa Store’s Facebook (linked here: https://www.facebook.com/brcleamingtonspa), as well as on our instagram.

Additionally, as shown on the posters, the store set up a specific promotion to give students a discount on items under £6, where any three items would come to £10 total (shown left). We consider this to be a huge success firstly because the mere mention of the promotion should encourage people to engage with it, in the same way we might expect a supermarket to increase sales by holding offers, and secondly because the promotion itself frames the student-only offer as exclusive. 

At the time of publication for the blog, the posters are yet to be uploaded.

(Pictured: Wilkie Dickinson-Sparkes)

Results

Engagement Data

Conclusions

Concluding thoughts are thus: although our initial approach of trying to get charity shops to create their own instagram accounts failed, we took the initiative to create our own account where we would raise awareness of the benefits of shopping ethically and sustainably, as well as promote items of clothing from charity shops, such as the British Red Cross. We successfully brought about several behaviour changes: firstly, we managed to develop a relationship with the Leamington Spa British Red Cross, who were convinced by our letter to work with us to design and promote deals to students. In addition, the creation of our instagram account led to students wanting to actively get involved in our project, via advertising our posts themselves and offering to model on our instagram account. We had one student message: “I want to get involved. Let me know if there’s anything I can do”, highlighting the change we made in student’s behaviour by inspiring them to want to actively get involved in the movement. Overall, we have learnt how to overcome obstacles that we faced in our project and how to adjust the project accordingly to these changes and still manage to achieve our original goals. One way in which we could have improved may be to have branched out the campaign to wider populations and regions. The charity shops that we sent letters to and asked to collaborate with us were situated only in the Leamington Spa and Coventry area. Therefore, if we had widened the target market we may have accomplished more behavioural changes in other charity shops, such as independent charity stores where it wouldn’t be as hard to get permission regarding starting up their own instagram or social media accounts. Furthermore, surveys conducted on our instagram story found that 76%  of people following our instagram were from the university of warwick. In future, we should look into trying to promote our slogan and account to other universities across the UK in order to reach more students and open more students to the idea of ethical and sustainable fashion and shopping. 

 Pictured: screenshot of a student actively wanting to take part in the movement 

Sources:

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