Much of the sustainability research has orientated around the production side of the business model, changing a consumer’s consumption pattern, such as extending the usage of a product and reducing the frequency of purchase and even promoting shared use, is now being recognised as a critical facet of working towards sustainability. The focus on the consumer perspective, their usage and response to alternative modes of garment use is under represented in the research to-date, which has predominantly focused on the point of design or disposal. Employing a multi-method qualitative study, this research engages with consumers to build the critical insights currently pertinent but neglected in shifting consumers towards more sustainable fashion consumption practices. Fashion management is important as evidenced by a global garment industry valued at around US $1.7 trillion and employing approximately 75 million people (Fashion United; International Labour Organisation). However, there are significant environmental costs from resource inputs, manufacture, use and disposal of clothing. This impact occurs while around only 30% of clothing, valued at around £4000, in our wardrobes was worn in the last year (Williams, 2016). Coupled with an increase in clothing purchases, this has led to the phenomena of disposing of garments that may only have been worn a few times. Disposal of clothing is a key tenet of sustainability, with high volumes of purchases propelled by discourses of “fast fashion” (Bianchi and Birtwistle, 2010) resulting in approximately one million tonnes of clothes being disposed annually in the UK (Defra, 2009). Whilst a need for consumer behaviour change is clearly identified for systemic change within fashion management, little insight is provided as to how this can be facilitated. From a production and retail perspective, sustainable clothing discussions have been appropriated into mainstream retail practice (in brands such as People Tree, Patagonia, Everlane, H&M) however one of the presented barriers of a mainstream adoption of this approach, is the lack of trust and weak incentives for consumers. With the premise of extending understandings beyond interested niche fashion groups to mainstream society, we explore tensions and opportunities in extending clothing acquisition practices towards a circular approach. Focusing on fashion consumers (considered as purchasing one fashion item per week) we carried out a multi-method ethnographic study over six months to intervene and challenge consumer fashion consumption habits. We augment the conventional model of fashion consumer behaviour of ‘buy-own-dispose’ and contribute an emergent understanding of the challenges, barriers and opportunities of sustainable clothing consumption and the implications for fashion management.

Social media has radically altered marketing’s ecology of influence. Moreover, through the rise of visual social media platforms in recent years, marketers are facing new challenges. Adopting an exploratory approach, our study combines interviews and content analysis to explore the managerial perspectives to brand storytelling through visual content site Pinterest and to assess its potential as a strategic marketing communications tool.