The global apparel manufacturers have produced apparel and textiles to meet consumers’ needs. Recently, they have applied the sophisticated technologies and more effective organizational systems to improve the efficiencies in apparel product development and their applications have led to enhancement of consumers’ satisfaction (Kunz, Karpova, & Garner, 2016). In this study, we identified novel approaches of product innovation strategies including technological innovation and organizational effort which a representative mass-scale Bangladeshi apparel manufacturer, Ananta Group has practiced. For data collection, in-depth interviews were conducted with four managerial staffs who were managers and assistant managers working at the research and development (R&D), production, marketing and quality control departments in Ananta Group. The interviewees were male employees having degrees higher than bachelor’s degree in textile engineering. Their work experience years ranged from 5 to 15 years within their respective fields and their ages ranged from 28 to 55 years (m=40). Qualitative approach was used to analyze the data. It was found that Ananta Group has used innovative technologies such as advanced softwares, process systems and machineries in new product development and its organizational effort of running specialized teams of design, new product development, and marketing activities has enhanced technological innovation. These findings provide global apparel manufacturers with valuable information on how product innovation strategies for new apparel development are important and what technological approaches can be used to accomplish it.

Introduction The current fashion industry has been overrun with fast fashion products in the last couple of decades. Consequently, it has become one of the most environmentally degrading industries worldwide, and is plagued by social and economic inequalities (Fletcher, 2013). The fast fashion apparel industry produces pollution and waste; and wearers are exposed to hazardous materials. The fast pace of the fashion industry has also led to unsafe working conditions that can result in detrimental influence on workers as in the 2013 Rana Plaza collapse in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Furthermore, the individuals responsible for making the fast fashion products often live in underdeveloped countries and are paid below national minimum wage (Niinimaki, 2013). In contrast, the sustainable fashion industry aims to produce safer, cleaner, and more impactful apparel. A part of the growing sustainable apparel industry is slow fashion, which emphasizes creating fashion products at a less-intensive pace with environmentally-minded techniques. Slow fashion movement is an emerging trend within the fashion industry that counteracts the harms of fast fashion. The term „slow fashion‟ was first used by Kate Fletcher and shares several characteristics with slow food, from which the slow fashion movement got much of its inspiration (Cataldi, Dickson, & Grover, 2010). Slow fashion is thought to represent a blatant discontinuity such as a break from the values and goals of fast (growth-based) fashion (Fletcher, 2013). Slow fashion attempts to remedy the various negative economic, social, and environmental global impacts of the current fast fashion system. The purpose of this study was to analyze the material-oriented trends of representative fast fashion and slow fashion brands toward the development of sustainable fashion. This study aimed to answer the following questions: 1) By what efforts in terms of material usage do the fast and slow fashion brands promote sustainable fashion? and 2) How do these efforts influence apparel manufacturing as sustainability practices and consumers‟ purchase intentions? Backgrounds Moore and Fernie (Moore & Fernie, 2004, p. 31) defined fast fashion as “various strategies to respond commercially to the latest fashion trends”. Fast fashion brands, such as H&M, Forever 21, and Zara, use a combination of quick response and enhanced design techniques to quickly design, manufacture, and stock trendy apparel and accessories that consumers can purchase at an affordable price (Cortez et al., 2014). The manufacturers of fast fashion brands struggle to provide innovative merchandise in their preferred production timetable (Cortez et al., 2014). In such an overloaded manufacturing process, the apparel industry has experienced increased pollution and hazardous work environments. Slow fashion is defined as “a philosophy of attention that is sensitive to environmental and societal needs and to the impact production and distribution have on society and the environment” (Karaosman, Brun, & Morales-Alonso, 2016). Antanaviciute and Dobilaite (2015) report that the slow fashion industry is sustainable and seeks a greater purpose than making profit, and is thus characterized with promoting fair economic, environmental, and social systems within the fashion cycle. In the slow fashion movement, the materials used to produce garments are environmentally friendly. Sustainable fashion is achieved when available materials are used to their ultimate potential; waste materials are utilized; the products are recycled; and a second life for the fashion products is planned (Sharda & Mohan Kumar, 2012). In addition, sustainable fashion uses biodegradable materials such as organic cotton, polylactic acid, and other biopolymers etc. (Fletcher, 2013). In the production phase, garments workers who produce sustainable fashion products are paid a living wage, unlike their counterparts who work for less than a dollar a day in the fast fashion industry. Throughout the slow fashion supply chain, reducing the speed at which the products are produced and consumed is emphasized. Slowing down the production phase results in end products of better materials, with more material-construction input-time, and longer-lasting overall final product, as compared to typical fast fashion items. Case study This study was conducted based on a case study. We analyzed the sustainability practices in aspect of fiber materials of two representative brands: a fast fashion, Zara and a slow fashion, People Tree. Several resources were used to collect the information necessary for the case study. The primary resources were academic articles, reports, and brochures from companies‟ websites. The information on both companies was very useful to understand their products and sustainability practices as a fast fashion and a slow fashion brand. Zara is a ready-to-wear fast fashion retailer based in Spain, which was created by Rosalia Mera and Óscar Pérez Marcote in 1974. Since its creation, the fast fashion retailer has built a reputation for manufacturing and stocking on-trend clothing at the customer‟s demand. The company sends small shipments year-round to stores and subsequently monitors the customers‟ reactions by adjusting the store inventory. The retail giant has employed over 10,000 employees and is a private company that, according to the Business of Fashion, was worth $16.7 billion in 2013 (Hansen, 2012). Zara is known as affordable luxury (Gamboa & Goncalves, 2014) for its on-trend imitations of high-end clothing pieces that are inexpensive. The average Zara consumer is young with an age range of 18 to 24 years and female (Gamboa & Goncalves, 2014). Zara was chosen for this case study based on its unique and successful fast fashion business model. Zara has been criticized for numerous violations in manufacturing practice, including a lack of hygiene and safety in its Argentinian factories. The workers‟ rights NGO La Alameda, alleged that the working conditions consisted of no breaks and poorly lit and unventilated conditions (Crotty, 2013). The company compensated the workers and was forced to pay $530,000. People Tree is considered as a pioneer in the slow fashion movement and sustainable fashion. The company has implemented many measures to increase its economic, social, and environmental sustainability. People Tree was the first fashion brand to develop an integrated supply chain for organic cotton from the farm to the final product. Furthermore, they were the first organization to achieve a Global Organic Textile Standard certification. They source their yarns, fabrics, and accessories locally, as well as choose natural and recycled products over the toxic, synthetic, and non-biodegradable materials typically found in fast fashion products. The People Tree producer group is comprised of over 4,560 artisan producers, which includes hand weavers, hand knitters, embroiderers, tailors, and group leaders. They allow local individuals to produce and create incredibly unique products, thus generating livelihoods and incomes for these individuals who typically reside in very rural areas. Zara uses a variety of synthetic and organic fibers and textiles in its clothing. Zara partners with a company called Lenzing to source recycled polyester, cotton, and wool when available, and then donates any extra textiles not used in manufacturing products. Zara prioritizes using organic cotton and recycled materials. Organic cotton is grown and manufactured without harmful pesticides. Zara has become one of the biggest users of organic cotton, which is a part of their Join Life campaign and in collaboration with the Better Cotton Initiative (Inditex Annual Report, 2016). Zara also uses three types of rayon in its products: Modal, Viscose, and Lyocell. These materials are made from cellulose fibers, which take longer to harvest and manufacture than cotton. People Tree does not use polyester in its products, and most of its clothing is made from organic cotton and wool. It uses 100% fair-trade certified organic cotton that is certified by Soil Association (People Tree Seventh Biennial Social Review, 2011-2012). In addition to cotton and wool, it uses a fiber called “Tencel,” which is made from wood pulp. Tencel is a Lyocell product, also made from cellulose fiber, which is stretch-resistant and highly versatile. Zara uses both synthetic and organic fibers; whereas, People Tree uses organic fibers in the manufacturing of products. Lyocell is one of the most revered sustainable fibers currently on the market. Lyocell is a cellulosic fiber, specifically derived from wood pulp, normally eucalyptus (Fletcher, 2013), beech, and pine (Gordon & Hill, 2015). In a typical process, the wood pulp is dissolved in a solution of amine oxide, a solvent, which is then spun into fibers; subsequently, the solvent is removed from the fibers through a washing process (Fletcher, 2013). The manufacturing process recovers 99.5% of the solvent and the solvent is recycled back into the process (Fletcher, 2013). The solvent is non-toxic, non-corrosive, and all effluent is non-hazardous (Fletcher, 2013). Lyocell has many other environmental benefits such as complete biodegradability (six weeks in an aerated compost heap), and of renewable raw material (eucalyptus has a fast-growing cycle and reaches full maturity in seven years). No bleaching is used prior to processing the fiber, thus reducing chemical, water, and energy consumption in the dyeing process; hence, Lyocell is considered as a “very clean” fiber (Fletcher, 2013). While Lyocell is considered a very sustainable product, its production is energy intensive. However, due to recent research, the amount of energy used to make Lyocell has begun to decrease (Fletcher, 2013). Lyocell is also known by its brand name, Tencel (Gordon & Hill, 2015). Companies such as People Tree have begun to use products like Tencel in their everyday-clothing production. People Tree‟s “Our Tencel” collection is produced by Creative Handicrafts, a social enterprise working to actively empower disadvantaged women of the slum communities of Mumbai through economic independence. Like every producer of People Tree‟s clothing or Tencel products, Creative Handicrafts works to provide fair pay and safe treatment for all their workers. They also work to improve the lives of those employed by Creative Handicrafts. People Tree is currently using their “Our Tencel” collection to upskill the workers, making them qualified for higher paying and more difficult jobs should they choose to leave Creative Handicrafts. They aim to provide workers with a greater range of fabrics that they can work with for future client‟s needs. This provides the workers with greater business opportunities. The slow fashion brand‟s attributes attract ethical consumers. The ethical consumer considers the impact of consumption in terms of environmental and social responsibilities (Barnett et al., 2005). The likeliness of ethical consumer‟s purchasing or willing to purchase a slow fashion product depends on the customer‟s level of involvement. A consumer with high involvement who is willing to purchase the product at a higher price, is not attracted to mass fashion trends, and shows intent to purchase an apparel product for environmental reasons (Jung & Jin, 2016). McNeil and Moore (McNeil & Moore, 2015) found correlations between concern levels for both environmental and social wellbeing and consumer‟s intentions towards sustainable apparel. Similarly, it is possible to predict the preference of ethical consumers to purchase a fast fashion product if made of sustainable fiber materials. Conclusions We analyzed the material-oriented trends of representative fast fashion brand, Zara, and slow fashion brand, People Tree, toward development of sustainable fashion. The kinds of materials used by each brand in manufacturing fashion products, and recent efforts in sustainable practices of both fashion brands were analyzed. The results indicated that the fast fashion brand, Zara has begun to incorporate sustainable fibers such as organic cotton into their products, and the slow fashion brand, People Tree uses more sustainable fibers such as Tencel and organic cotton for its garments and other products. The efforts involved in the trends of fast and slow fashion brands toward sustainable fashion were anticipated to attract ethical consumers‟ purchase intentions. The current findings suggested that new technology offers innovative manufacturing processes producing more eco-friendly products, less waste, and less pollution, which begins to mitigate the negative environmental effects of the traditional fast fashion industry. Implications and limitations This study was intended to analyze the efforts involved in the production of fast fashion and slow fashion brands in aspect of fiber materials, toward the overall goal of sustainable practices. This study may be useful to designers, manufacturers, and retailers who hope to better understand the trend of sustainable practices of both fast and slow fashion brands. Since ethical consumers presumably prefer sustainable products, this study may help designers, manufacturers, and retailers establish optimized strategies tailored to such trends. This study has a limitation due to selection of a small number of brands, which prevents the generalization of the results to all fast and slow fashion brands.

The concept of retail therapy which refers to “the phenomenon in which consumers buy things to make themselves feel better” (Kacen, 1998) has been used by the U.S. retail firms in marketing (Kang & Johnson, 2010). Previous studies found that retail therapy concept was associated to consumption behaviors including compulsive buying (Faber & O’Guinn, 1992; O’Guinn & Faber, 1989). Frost et al. (1998) found that compulsive hoarders show compulsive buying tendencies. O’Guinn and Faber (1989) found that compulsive buyers are more likely to confirm compulsivity as a personality trait with a low self-esteem. Lack of research into association of retail therapy to compulsive consumer behaviors motivated us to pursue this study which investigate relationships among retail therapy, compulsive buying and compulsive hoarding, and to examine the moderating effect of consumers’ personality traits on the relationship between retail therapy and compulsive hoarding. Our research questions are: (1) How retail therapy is related to compulsive buying and compulsive hoarding? and (2) Which personality traits moderate the relationship between retail therapy and compulsive hoarding? Based on the literature review, the following hypotheses were proposed. H1: Retail therapy is positively related to compulsive buying; H2: Compulsive buying is positively related to compulsive hoarding; H3: Retail therapy is positively related to compulsive hoarding & H4: Personality trait moderates the relationship between retail therapy and compulsive hoarding. The researchers used 12 items to measure retail therapy (Kang, 2009), 6 items to measure compulsive buying (Faber & O’Guinn, 1992), 9 items to measure compulsive hoarding (Frost, Sketekee, & Grisham, 2004) 8 items of Big Five Inventory (Rammstedt & John, 2007) and 15 item Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI) (Ames, Rose & Anderson, 2006) to measure personality trait based on 7‑point Likert scales (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree). The online survey was conducted with college students enrolled at a major Midwestern University. A total of 354 undergraduate and graduate students’ responses were used to analyze data. A principal component factor analysis with varimax rotation was conducted to evaluate the measurement of each construct. The factor loadings were above of 0.60, indicating acceptable convergent validity. Reliabilities with Cronbach’s alphas for retail therapy,compulsive buying, compulsive hoarding and personality trait construct were 0.96, 0.81, 0.90 and 0.81 respectively, exceeding the suggested level of 0.70. Simple linear regression was performed to test hypotheses. The results revealed that F statistic (F(1, 352)=126.53, p =.000) was significant and regression coefficient was statistically significant. Therefore, H1 was supported and consistent with previous findings (Faber & O’Guinn, 1992). The regression coefficient for the path from compulsive buying to compulsive hoarding was statistically significant (F(1, 352)=77.15, p=.000). Therefore, H2 was supported and consistent with Frost et al. (1998)’s study. The retail therapy contributed significantly to the prediction of compulsive hoarding with the statistically significant regression results (F(1, 352)=20.28, p=.000), supporting H3. From the principle component analysis with varimax rotation, four factors were extracted from 23 personality trait measurement items which are labeled as “authority-leadership narcissism”, “self-esteem narcissism”, “positive disposition”, and “negative disposition”. All factor loadings were above 0.60 for their respective factors. Then, the researchers divided one single group into four personality trait groups, using these four factors. 4%, 27.1%, 53.7% & 15.3% participants represented “authority-leadership narcissism”, “self-esteem narcissism”, “positive disposition” & “negative disposition” group respectively. Simple regression analysis was performed to test H4. The regression coefficients for positive disposition group (F(1, 188)=13.19, p=.000) and negative disposition group (F(1, 52)=5.01, p≤.05) were statistically significant. H4 was partially supported. The results indicated that people from two groups characterized by positive/negative personality tend to engage in compulsive hoarding to alleviate their negative feelings or mood. Anyone with narcissistic personality with a high self-efficacy may not be engaged in compulsive hoarding even when a therapeutic treatment is made through shopping. They tend to purchase products for changing their moods, but their therapeutic behavior doesn’t lead to compulsive hoarding, which causes sufferings in the end. The low self-esteem has been presented with people being engaged in compulsive behaviors (Marlatt et al., 1988). These findings can help apparel marketers develop the strategies to upgrade their sellingenvironment entertaining so that their customers’ moods are repaired and customers feel satisfied through therapeutic shopping behavior. This study has a limitation that prevents us from generalizing the results to the young consumer population due to sample size to college students.

Our research focused on the development of a conceptual model of the turnover intention of part-time sales associates working in apparel retailing to enhance understanding of the issue and thus, provide information to apparel retailers to curtail the loss of human resources. The model consists of input variables and outcomes. Input variables were personal characteristics, work engagement, and work effort. Outcome variables were job performance, job satisfaction, burnout, and employee turnover. A convenience sample of 294 part-time workers completed an online questionnaire. Structural equation modeling was used to test hypotheses regarding antecedents to turnover intention. This study revealed that self-efficacy and work competencies indirectly influenced intention to turnover because they influenced work engagement, which in turn positively affected work effort. Work effort and work engagement directly influenced job performance, which in turn impacted job satisfaction. The data also indicated a negative relationship between job satisfaction and burnout. Burnout had a direct influence on turnover intention. As a research limitation, our data came from a purposive sample. A random sample of part-time associates is needed to generalize findings. This study provides numerous implications for future research with regard to additional variables impacting work effort, work engagement, job satisfaction, and turnover intention.