In this post on the Comms Women platform, Emily Emerick, a student at the University of Alabama, College of Communication and Information Sciences, analyses an article by Dourado, Llover, and Fernández on communicating sustainability in fashion, published in Corporate Communications: An International Journal published by Emerald.
As the fashion industry is taken by storm by new innovative ways to make the sector eco-friendly, we see all different types of changes. Sustainable fashion is more than just using eco-friendly materials and reducing water waste; it’s about changing consumer behaviors and having brand transparency. We have seen this change within different fashion designers’ work by their being open about using sustainable materials and the creative and innovative ways they incorporate them into their designs. The change in moral values of younger consumers can positively influence their decision on who to buy from, setting apart a transparent, sustainable company since that is something they statistically value. An interesting study was conducted on Spanish and Portuguese designers to see how they engage with their consumers digitally and the content they focused on communicating by Pedro Dourado, Carmen LLovet, Eglée Ortega Fernández.
In the study, the authors analyzed communication from 63 fashion designers from the 2022 and 2023 fashion weeks in Madrid and Lisbon. They took a deep dive into their digital platforms and studied over 4,600 Instagram posts to see the content and messages these designers were giving their consumers. Even though within this past decade there has been a huge stress on designers and companies to use sustainable materials and methods, only 6% of the content put out by these designers was communicating about sustainability. This shows that even though designers want to have the positive reputation of being a sustainable brand, a lot of them were unwilling to communicate about what was going on behind the scenes and don’t promote it. This supports the idea that designers and companies want to promote and keep a consistent aesthetic, leaving them to not communicate certain topics on their platforms. Instagram is known to be one of the top ways designers self-promote their brand, yet the stigmas and pressure to keep a high-held standard aesthetic led to an unrealistic visual for consumers. Neglecting an opportunity to educate their consumers on the importance of sustainability within their companies can set them back within the industry regardless of them keeping their glamorous aesthetic. The study focused on two European countries that have their own cultural distinctions but also a lot of similarities between their industries. For example, we see the increased awareness of the consumers expressing their want for sustainable fashion, yet the designers aren’t portraying this on their platforms by not producing more sustainable-focused content. It is important to understand that these findings show that designers struggle with finding a balance of creativity and sustainability within their work. This study, opens the door to give designers the detail they need to make the changes and create and put their messages on their brand’s morals while keeping the visual aesthetic of their media platforms that they also value.
By designers being transparent with their consumers and going into detail about their material choices and the production process, this will create trust within their target consumers, leading them to have more brand loyal customers. This will give the customer a sense of the behind-the-scenes of the companies, leading them to appreciate their work more and support them because they align values. Being a fashion designer or company, it’s pressured to always present the glitz and glam, but by also allowing your consumers to see past that and actually get an understanding of where and how their clothing is being made will earn them credibility and trust in their consumers. Making this change within the industry will inspire more designers to do the same, meaning that a mass number of consumers will be introduced to and educated more on where their clothes are coming from, helping us as a society live more sustainable lives. This can change the world of fast fashion and allow designers to be more creative and let them design for more of a purpose than just for the fast production of a fad trend. Overall, the future of fashion is about looking good while feeling good, knowing the sustainable measures that these designers have expressed to you.
Article reference: Dourado, P., Llovet, C., & Ortega Fernández, E. (2024). Communicating sustainability: The Iberian challenge for authorial fashion brands. Corporate Communications: An International Journal, 18(1). https://doi.org/10.1108/ccij-12-2023-0179