Understanding fast fashion consumption : a values perspective

Abstract

In recent years, fast fashion has been growing in popularity, with brands like Zara and H&M proliferating markets worldwide. One major drawback to the popularity of these cheap and trendy brands is the many environmental issues that the fast fashion business model brings about. The present study thus seeks to understand the motivations underlying fashion consumption to better understand how pro-environmental consumption can be encouraged. Specifically, the study had two goals: (1) to determine whether value orientations predict shopping behaviours, and (2) to examine whether behavioural change could be induced through exposure to value primes which change the relative importance of values (i.e., decreasing or increasing value rankings). Environmental knowledge was controlled for. Two hundred and twenty-one participants were recruited through convenience sampling and were randomly assigned a value prime condition (hedonic vs. biospheric). First, participants completed questionnaires measuring their values, attitudes, knowledge, and shopping behaviours. They then responded to a willingness-to-pay measure before and after exposure to the value prime allocated to them. Firstly, environmental knowledge was found to have no effect on the relationship between values and behaviour. Secondly, the results showed that values could not adequately predict fashion shopping behaviours. Lastly, the findings indicated that value primes were able to induce a change in value rankings as expected. However, changing value rankings was insufficient in inducing a change in consumers’ preferences for fast or sustainable apparel. These findings suggest that attitudinal factors alone are not good predictors of pro-environmental behavior and other variables have to be considered.