The role of fashion designer in cultivation of environmental ethics in consumers through fashion collections

Abstract

This thesis presents a research about fashion designer’s engagement into the consumer perception of sustainable fashion, possibility to influence the consumer behaviour through fashion collections only and a potential to cultivate environmental ethics in audience. As sustainability is a relatively new trend in fashion, which is known well by conscious consumers, but still not spread among all other people, who are not familiar with fashion industry problems and negative environmental impacts it causes, it is important to highlight the problems of perception of sustainable fashion in general.

Used methods for this research include a group interview conducted during the time of fashion collection creation and a literature overview devoted to the problems of fashion industry, phenomena of sustainable fashion and circularity, psychology of fashion consumption, behaviour of consumers and the role of fashion designer in production of apparel. This study also gives a summary to the activity of sustainable fashion initiatives, brands and institutions operating today and promoting sustainable values. Their work is targeted to the change of the negative perception of sustainable fashion, which is quite strong in our modern society, and support of the shift from conventional fashion towards the sustainable one.

This study examines the importance of a fashion designer in changing the fashion industry, the knowledge he/she obtains and actions he/she applies to communicate with the viewers and contribute to ecology. Fashion collection as an art object can be a powerful instrument to spread ideas, and this paper investigates the probability of this, and chances to be heard by people.

The paper contains a description of a concept of a fashion collection which is an experiment aimed to provoke thoughts in viewers about ecology.

This research could be useful for the fashion designers who are eager to create fashion collections with a goal to influence their audience in order to instill some new ideas and provoke thoughts about existing problems.