The increased appearance of fashion trends and cost efficiency of the fashion industry led to the phenomenon of fast fashion which radically changed the current of textile industries and the consumer’s shopping habits. With time quick changes in fashion trends became completely usual and the offers of fast fashion’s trademarks change in the shortest time possible or are exchanged with new collections. Its fast responsiveness to the market’s demands, efficiency and affordability have stimulated the impulsive consumption of the modern buyer and have, all in all, strengthened materialism. The consequences of aggressive fashion industry are shown in huge quantities of waste clothes and other waste materials as well as in exploitation of natural and human resources, which places the fashion industry among the biggest environment pollutants. Alongside the drastic growth of fast fashion’s negative consequences, modern society also faces the introduction of sustainable approaches, which among other things defend the principles of slow fashion. The purpose of the latter is not to slow down the textile industry, but more wholesome emphasis on the production of sustainable and quality products. Sustainable fashion, which tries to move in accordance with the trends of the consumer’s interest in social responsibility, strives for the ethic of textile products and grows more susceptible to the doubts connected with the life cycle of clothes and their ecological irreproachableness. The realization of the importance of health and the individual’s responsibility for the future of the Earth led to the realization of alternative and sustainable practices inside of different industries as well as in everyday life of each of us.
The theoretical part of the thesis presents notions connected with the sustainability of the textile industry, such as fast fashion, slow fashion and sustainable fashion, the beginnings and operation of fast fashion, the societal and environmental influences and the consequences of fast fashion as well as sustainable approaches to fast fashion and the consumer culture of modern buyers who are the driving force of fashion as we know it today. The experimental part of the thesis consists of a series of interviews with three Slovenian fashion and textile industry experts who presented their perception of the current state of the textile industry and sustainable fashion. Furthermore, the experimental part of the thesis consisted of a survey conducted among Slovenian consumers who were surveyed on their knowledge of the notions fast fashion, slow fashion and sustainable fashion. Most participants in the survey belong to Generation Y (born between 1985 and 2000).
While analysing survey results we found out that modern consumers buy most of their clothes in fast fashion retailers despite being aware of the environmental impact of the textile and fashion industry and inadequate quality of the garments themselves. Most of the consumers find sustainable fashion brands too expensive while the fashion and textile industry experts we interviewed emphasized a distinctive lack of awareness regarding sustainable fashion in modern consumers as the main problem that enables the existence and expansion of the fast fashion phenomenon.
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