Fashion industry pressure on natural resources has grown dramatically as consumption grew in emerging countries and the principle of rapid change of fashions extended to mass market in western counties, at the same time supply chains expanded globally to countries with lower labor and environmental standards creating critical sustainability challenges. Meanwhile, sustainability has become a hot topic for consumers that hold brands responsible for sustainability performances along the whole supply chain. The paper traces developments in the fashion business commitment to sustainability over two decades, with a focus on the implication for SCM. Academic literature focuses mainly on partial issues, missing the overall picture, the interaction among a complex set of factors, and to account for the role of past decisions and mistakes on current SSCM (sustainable supply chain management) strategy developments. The time span considered captures sustainability awareness in the fashion business which is in its statu nascenti (nascent state) and the trial and error process that led to progressive refinements of both means and ends. The paper provides an extensive review of academic articles, business reports, technical documents, regulations and direct information from the field and identifies five key lessons learnt in this process that influence current fashion business strategies in sustainability and SCM.

Fashion is primarily based on adoption of trends by consumers in textiles, clothing, footwear, jewelry and art, inter alia. As fashion is based on human preferences, it is characterized by dynamic changes throughout seasons and years, short life cycles, low predictability and high volatility of demand and impulse purchases. In the dynamic environment of apparel markets, fashion firms aim at successfully forecasting both the desirability of new collections and the volumes of each item produced and released to the market under terms of substantial levels of uncertainty. When demand for an item exceeds its supply, the firm is likely to lose additional profits that could have been collected had a sufficient volume of this item been present in the market. Alternatively, if the supply of an item surpassed its demand, it would remain unsold, thereby generating loss equal to its marginal production and distribution costs. The paper proposes a forecasting model that enhances the accuracy of fashion trend forecasting in the context of multiple variants of colour clothing. The model aims at maximizing profits of the firms, while minimizing the forecasting error and reducing the costs that result from excess capacity of production or, alternatively, from loss of potential revenues due to low demand.

This study illuminates the inherent difficulty to manage creativity in fashion design as well as the innovation capabilities in an entire fashion firm. The paper is elaborating creative capabilities in fashion extended to the entire supply chain. In addition to manufacturers and retailers the supply chain also includes transporters, warehouses, stores, and even customers themselves. Within each stage includes all parts needed to get and satisfy customer requirements. This research is based on data from two of the most rapid growing and profit increasing fashion brands in Sweden, which are Cheap Monday and Acne Studios. The analysis has three starting points and definitions. i.e. fashion design, creativity and innovation. The results show that creative capabilities have to been spread out in the entire supply chain to be an efficient component in the building and managing an innovative firm such as it is the case in the fashion industry.