China is leading the global fashion market value in 2023 with consumers experiencing an integration of traditional consumption and production approaches to innovative ones triggered by the internet of things (IoT). This high speed ‘inspire and sell’ consumer conversion approach (ibid) is both enabling fashion consumption and introducing alternative approaches to end of life items. This finds Chinese consumers on the top of the global fashion consumption ranks raising even more the importance of sustainable practices. On an industry level, the shortened fashion cycles, the changes in item longevity, the low prices and the fast-moving consumer trends have attributed to an increasing waste generation as consumers discard clothes more frequently. Increasingly, studies alert to the availability of alternative end of life fashion practices, such as, swapping, renting selling etc offering more choices in terms of reducing fashion waste. Yet research related to these efforts seem to have a national or regional perspective and approach and most of the studies are located and focused on western societies.

• Panayiota J Alevizou(University of Sheffield, United Kingdom)
• Claudia E Henninger(University of Manchester, United Kingdom)
• Xiaoye Fu(Beijing Technology and Business University, China)