Slow Fashion Adoption : Exploring Frameworks to Uncover Antecedents of Slow Fashion Adoption.

2023

Sustainability within the fashion industry is a topic of increasing importance. In the fashion

industry today, consumers mainly adopt fast fashion products. Fast fashion has promoted an

unsustainable consumer behaviour making the industry one of the worst polluters. Moreover,

the industry frequently faces scrutiny for its poor labour practices. In response to these

environmental and social problems, the concept of slow fashion has arisen, promoting

sustainable production and consumer behaviour. Slow fashion is currently just a small part of

the fashion industry, emphasising the need to study the topic, to enable the shift from fast to

slow fashion. Therefore, our purpose was to study antecedents of slow fashion adoption.

Consumer Orientation towards Slow Fashion (COSF), consisting of five dimensions; equity,

authenticity, functionality, localism, and exclusivity, has been used as an adoption framework

for slow fashion. We tested this framework on a Norwegian population, to validate the

framework on a new demographic. In addition, we believed that COSF was missing an aspect

of slow fashion, repairing clothes. Therefore, we chose to test an extended version of the

COSF framework, with a repair dimension. COSF had never been tested when controlling for

the widely used Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB). Hence, we chose to test the COSF and

TPB together.

To study the antecedents of slow fashion adoption we did a quantitative survey on students at

the Norwegian School of Economics. The results showed that the dimensions of equity,

functionality, authenticity, and localism had a direct positive influence on slow fashion

purchase intention. The repair dimensions in the extended COSF framework did not influence

purchase intention towards slow fashion. When testing COSF and TPB together, authenticity

and functionality from COSF, along with all dimensions from TPB, influenced slow fashion

purchase intention. We also explored possibilities of indirect effects, where only the

functionality dimensions had a influence on purchase intention, mediated through attitude.

The most important theoretical implication was that the COSF and TPB should be used jointly

when researching slow fashion adoption in the future. For managerial implications, the results

could help marketing managers adjust their marketing mix. The recommendations focus on

adapting the product and promotion to revolve around the authenticity and functionality

dimensions, and recommend measures to increase attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived

behaviour control towards slow fashion.