Fashion Marketing and the Ethical Movement Versus Individualist Consumption: Analysing the Attitude Behaviour Gap

The purpose of this paper is to analyse two current trends in the fashion market: ethical issues and throwaway fashion, and probe the attitude-behaviour gap between them. Using depth interviews with 10 young urban consumers, findings reveal a clear and large gap between positive attitudes toward ethical fashion but no actual consumption of such fashion. Consumers blamed price, affordability, and a lack of ethical fashion in mainstream markets and media, whilst the rich data revealed a detachment phenomenon where consumers shifted responsibility to third parties. Implications for marketing and consumer behaviour are presented.

Citation:

Lynn Sudbury and Sebastian Böltner (2011) ,"Fashion Marketing and the Ethical Movement Versus Individualist Consumption: Analysing the Attitude Behaviour Gap", in E - European Advances in Consumer Research Volume 9, eds. Alan Bradshaw, Chris Hackley, and Pauline Maclaran, Duluth, MN : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 163-168.