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Sustainability trends and gaps in the textile, apparel and fashion industries

• Open access
• Published: 10 February 2023
• Volume 26 , pages 2837–2864, ( 2024 )

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• Stefano Abbate 1 ,
• Piera Centobelli   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-3302-2236 1 ,
• Roberto Cerchione 2 ,
• Simon Peter Nadeem 3 &
• Emanuela Riccio 2  

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Textile, apparel, and fashion (TAF) industries contribute significantly to global environmental pollution at every point of the supply chain. Clothing manufacturing and transportation produce a large volume of waste and high greenhouse gas emissions, often taking advantage of cheap labor in developing countries. As a result, stakeholders are becoming more aware of the effect of the textile, apparel, and fashion industries on the climate and human rights, thus pushing businesses to mitigate their environmental damage. This paper offers a systematic literature review of sustainability trends in the TAF industries in the last 20 years. Bibliometric tools are also used to support the content analysis of the papers. The findings reveal three primary research areas in the TAF context: consumers’ behaviour towards sustainable clothing, circular economy initiatives, and sustainability challenges across the whole supply chain. As a result, this study highlights literature gaps and provides future research suggestions for each identified research cluster. In addition, drivers and barriers to implementing corporate social responsibility and circular economy practices are identified. Consequently, this study will help researchers and academicians work in this area to identify unexplored sub-fields, which reflect some potential investigation areas for expanding scientific literature on the topic. Finally, this study supports practitioners and managers in exploring the main research themes addressed in the scientific field, providing knowledge to improve and align business models with current sustainability trends.

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1 Introduction

The production and consumption of clothes have consistently increased over the past few decades due to rapid population growth, increasing global incomes, and higher living standards (Shirvanimoghaddam et al., 2020 ). Rather than evaluating how design and production can incorporate consumer desires and sustainability, clothes are engineered and manufactured for rapid trend turnovers via obsolescence and early disposal, allowing for fast income (Kozlowski et al., 2018 ). This type of business model makes textile, apparel, and fashion (TAF) industries among the most polluting in the world (Grazzini et al., 2021 ), generating a huge volume of clothing waste (Chan et al., 2020 ). Indeed, less than 1% of all textiles are recycled back into clothes, 25% of textile waste is reused or recycled, and 75% of textile trash is disposed of in landfills globally (Ellen MacArthur Foundation, 2017 ). In terms of water consumption, the fashion industry ranks second globally (Paździor et al., 2017 ). In addition, the natural ecosystem suffers greatly from the dispersion into the environment of coloured effluents and microplastics, which occurs mainly in the clothing production and disposal stages (Liu et al., 2021 ; Sadeghi-Kiakhani et al., 2021 ). The COVID-19 pandemic has increased this phenomenon: the management of recently emerging wastes, often known as "COVID wastes," including cloth facemasks, is causing growing concern due to the release of microplastics into the environment (Shirvanimoghaddam et al., 2022 ). A potential solution to reduce the environmental consequences of cloth facemasks is using natural and biodegradable polymers for their production, such as wood-based polymers (Shirvanimoghaddam et al., 2022 ). In addition, textile waste can be repurposed for different applications. For instance, they can be used as a renewable source to produce thermal energy (Nunes et al., 2018 ). Pyrolysis is a desirable substitute for incineration in the treatment of textile waste to increase the economic benefits (Yousef et al., 2019 ). In addition, cotton waste can be a perfect material for creating high-performance catalysts and removing pollutants from the environment due to its natural state and affordability (Fakhrhoseini et al., 2020 ; Shirvanimoghaddam et al., 2019 ). Finally, different reusing and recycling methods for managing textile waste can be employed, such as anaerobic digestion, fermentation, composting, and fibre regeneration (Juanga-Labayen et al., 2022 ).

Furthermore, TAF industries account for eight to ten percentage of global greenhouse gas emissions (Shrivastava et al., 2021 ), recognised as the leading cause of global warming, those effects in nature create floods, droughts, hurricanes, and sea-level rise, which are becoming more common in daily life (Mishra et al., 2021 ). As a result, governments and institutions led to the Paris Agreement on climate change in December 2015, where 195 countries have committed to keeping the temperature rise below 2 °C (Doukas et al., 2018 ). Furthermore, fashion companies often entrust the transformation process of raw materials into finished clothing to developing countries, significantly affecting their social sustainability (Chan et al., 2020 ). Consequently, in addition to issues concerning carbon emissions, water consumption, and waste disposal, another major problem of the fashion industry is the overuse of employees working in outsourced production units in countries with unsafe work environments and lower labour costs (Shrivastava et al., 2021 ). According to the triple bottom line (TBL) framework, which was coined by Elkington, ( 1998 ), the performance of an apparel company should be thus measured taking into account three dimensions: economic, environmental, and social. Further, these three dimensions should be balanced, rather than just seeing economic factors as a means for society (Weisenfeld & Hauerwaas, 2018 ). However, in long and fragmented supply chains like apparel, harmonising these three dimensions entails difficult commitment and cooperation from different actors (Bubicz et al., 2021 ; Freise & Seuring, 2015 ; Huq et al., 2016 ). The longer and more complex the chain becomes, the less contact there is between the different stakeholders, and monitoring of compliance with codes of behaviour becomes more complex (Bubicz et al., 2021 ; Egels-Zandén et al., 2015 ; Macchion et al., 2015 ; Sardar et al., 2016 ; Taylor, 2011 ; Wilhelm et al., 2016 ). Government regulatory pressures are continuously coercing businesses to implement substantial changes at the technological, material, organisational, economic, and socio-cultural levels (Kivimaa et al., 2019 ). Further, in 2015, United Nations launched the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), characterised by 17 global goals and 169 targets, which aim to encourage all countries to prioritise environmental sustainability, social inclusion, and economic development (United Nations, 2015 ). These goals demonstrate the severity and scope of today's sustainability issues (Sauermann et al., 2020 ). Therefore, in order to achieve the SDGs, fashion companies must improve their corporate social responsibility (CSR) commitment in diverse areas, promoting more sustainable production and consumption models (SDG12), reducing water consumption (SDG6), and ensuring decent working conditions (SDG8).

As a result of these concerns and due to the growing interest in the United Nations SDGs, in recent years TAF industries are more prone to pay attention to sustainability issues (Islam et al., 2020 ; Kabir et al., 2019 ). TAF industries have been establishing initiatives considering eco-efficiency concepts and aspiring to implement environmental practices, including sustainability reporting activities (Muñoz-Torres et al., 2021 ), which generate, in turn, cost savings (Lucato et al., 2017 ). Improving resource efficiency by extending the useful life of products or services is one way to promote sustainable development through a more circular economy (Rainville, 2021 ). In this context, the product-as-a-service model, or rental model, is often associated with a number of advantages, including a decrease in the environmental impact, an improvement in competitiveness, and an increase in user value (Monticelli & Costamagna, 2022 ). Further, companies operating in TAF industries are looking for creative and innovative ways to keep their carbon emissions low and minimise waste (Kozlowski et al., 2018 ), an example is the use of biodegradable and recycled raw materials (Wang et al., 2019 ). Likewise, consumers are now becoming more aware of the ethical issues of the goods they purchase, and as a result, they are changing their shopping habits (De Angelis et al., 2017 ; Gershoff & Frels, 2015 ; Grazzini et al., 2021 ), thus pushing fashion industry to become eco-friendly.

Given the increasing attention on the topic, different researchers conducted literature reviews on sustainability in the fashion industry from diverse points of view. Notably, Koeksal et al. ( 2017 ) focused on social aspects in textile/apparel sustainable supply chain management (SSCM). Paras and Pal ( 2018 ) reviewed the literature to establish and suggest a theoretical framework for a reuse-based clothing value chain. Koszewska ( 2018 ) identified the textile sector's challenges in adapting to the circular economy (CE) model. Dordevic et al. ( 2019 ) reviewed different CSR theories and methods used in the textile/apparel industry. Wagner and Heinzel ( 2020 ) analysed the literature on CE in the fashion industry, focusing on consumer behaviours concerning the sustainable purchase, usage, consumption, and disposal. Islam et al. ( 2020 ) summarised the primary environmentally friendly practices adopted by TAF industries. Jia et al. ( 2020 ) identified drivers, barriers, strategies, and performance measures for the CE in the fashion industry. Finally, Ki et al. ( 2021 ) reviewed the literature to provide a theoretical framework that offers a detailed explanation of how fashion companies can achieve circularity by involving external stakeholders in their activities.

Based on the above premises, in the scientific literature, there is a lack of literature reviews that offers a holistic understanding of sustainability issues in the TAF industries and evaluates research advances and trends on the topic to benefit multiple stakeholders. This paper aims to overcome these research gaps with a comprehensive overview of sustainability trends in the TAF manufacturing context. In addition, this research highlights both CSR and CE principles, supporting academicians, policymakers, practitioners, and other decision-makers in exploring the main research themes addressed in the scientific field. This paper is expected to contribute to the literature in the following ways. First, this study addresses the research gaps by offering a holistic perspective of a study area that is rapidly expanding. Second, this research combines the review process with bibliometric techniques. Although the growing interest in the research field, these approaches have not yet been adopted to explore sustainability progress in the TAF industries. Third, drivers and barriers to implementing CSR and CE practices are identified. Notably, CE is a production and consumption model that aims to extend products’ useful lives by helping to minimise waste, while CSR is often described as corporate practices that address economic, social, and environmental issues to benefit citizens, communities, and societies. The proposed taxonomy could be a reference point for further empirical studies. Finally, this article develops a conceptual model based on the extracted research clusters that integrate previous research findings, highlight research gaps, and offers guidance and potential avenues for further research to fill in the literature gaps.

After this introduction, Sect.  2 describes the review methodology adopted. Section  3 shows the data collection and selection phase. Sections  4 and Sect.  5 highlight descriptive and content analysis of the articles. Section  6 reports research discussions and provides a detailed research agenda. Finally, Sect.  7 presents conclusions and implications, highlighting theoretical and managerial contributions, as well as the research policy implication.

2 Review methodology

This study presents a systematic literature review adapted by Greenhalgh ( 1997 ), Cerchione and Esposito ( 2016 ), and Centobelli et al. ( 2017 ). Therefore, according to these contributions, we structured the literature review into two primary phases:

Data collection and selection: this phase includes identifying keywords and the search string, choosing the academic database (e.g. Scopus and Web of Science) to retrieve documents, and defining the inclusion/exclusion criteria to obtain papers focused on the research topic examined

Descriptive and content analysis phase: this phase includes conducting descriptive statistics (e.g. papers over time and articles by methodology) and an in-depth content analysis of the selected papers, aiming at identifying research gaps and providing a research agenda for further investigation.

Furthermore, we applied bibliometric methods to support the content analysis phase (van der Have & Rubalcaba, 2016 ). Notably, bibliometric techniques represent powerful tools to analyse scientific literature in a specific research field quantitatively (Ji et al., 2018 ; Zhi & Ji, 2012 ). One of the primary bibliometric methods is science mapping (Dzikowski, 2018 ) and it was used to discover the research field structure of a given topic (Cancino et al., 2017 ; Merigó et al., 2017 ; Shashi et al., 2021 ). This analysis can be implemented through numerous computer software. In this paper, we used VOSviewer software to build and visualise co-occurrence networks of keywords and paper terms, showing the main topics studied and suggestions for future research (Liboni et al., 2019 ). In particular, the co-occurrence analysis of keywords is an effective method for identifying research themes since it helps analyse the paper's content and assess the co-occurrence relationship between different concepts (Shashi et al., 2020a , 2020b ). Furthermore, the co-occurrence network of abstract terms is used to show research clusters based on recurrent terms that appear together (Liboni et al., 2019 ). According to van der Have and Rubalcaba ( 2016 ), the higher the frequency that keywords and paper terms co-occur, the stronger they are linked because they belong to a similar research sub-area. Thus, we aim to overcome this lack by offering a comprehensive literature review. Figure  1 synthesises the steps of the proposed literature review methodology.

Literature review methodology

3 Data collection and selection

The sample of articles was retrieved from the ISI Web of Science (WoS) database. More specifically, the WoS Core Collection was used in this study. Due to the high quality and extensive background coverage, the WoS database has traditionally been used as the primary source for literature reviews (Alon et al., 2018 ; Bahoo et al., 2020 ; Cao & Alon, 2020 ). Moreover, WoS is considered a leading data source compared to other scholarly research databases (e.g. Scopus and Google Scholar) since it only contains selective journals (Shashi et al., 2020b ). More precisely, WoS includes over 15,000 high-quality journals and 50,000,000 papers, organised into 251 categories and 150 research topics (Gaviria-Marin et al., 2019 ; Shashi et al., 2020a ).

After a brainstorming process among five researchers, a list of keywords was identified to carry out a systematic search and find articles regarding the issue of sustainability in the TAF industries. Further, the list of keywords was refined from time to time by including the keywords of the papers found previously. Finally, the following search string was used:

("textile industr*" OR "textile sector*" OR “clothing” OR “clothes” OR “garment” OR “fashion” OR “apparel”) AND (“green” OR "environmental performance" OR "financial performance" OR "social performance" OR “green” OR "economic* performance" OR "environmental benefit*" OR "financial benefit*" OR "economic* benefit*" OR "social benefit*" OR "ethical" OR "SDG*" OR "sustainable development" OR "corporate social responsibility" OR "triple bottom line" OR "environment-friendly" OR "eco-friendly" OR "circular economy" OR “reuse” OR "re-use" OR “recycling” OR "life cycle assessment" OR "life cycle analysis" OR “LCA” OR (“sustainab*”)) AND (“environment*” OR “economic*” OR “social”). We retrieved only documents that contain those terms in the title to circumscribe the research and identify only relevant outputs on the topic investigated.

To perform bibliometric analyses, we downloaded the full record and cited references of scholarly articles in the Web of Science Core Collection (Kern et al., 2019 ). The sample of 563 documents was retrieved in October 2022. We used different filters to refine our analysis. First, we chose to not consider papers published before 2000 due to the actuality of the topic (Desore & Narula, 2018 ) and we aim to conduct a review of the last two decades. Second, we collected only papers written in the English language (Shashi et al., 2020a , 2020b ). Subsequently, to ensure the sources’ quality, we decided to select only articles and reviews published in peer-reviewed journals, thus excluding other types of sources such as conference proceedings and book series (Shashi et al., 2020b ). As a result, 406 papers were collected.

Furthermore, according to the method suggested by Pittaway et al. ( 2004 ), we carefully checked the abstracts of all the selected papers so that only those studies whose abstracts focus on sustainability in the TAF industries were selected. To avoid subjective decisions, two researchers read the abstracts of the articles in parallel, with the intervention of a third researcher in case of uncertainty (Cerchione & Esposito, 2016 ). Thus, as also displayed in Table 1 , the papers were divided into the following two lists: list A includes documents whose abstract focuses on sustainability in the TAF industries and list B includes documents whose abstract focuses on technical and context-specific aspects of sustainability (e.g. processing, atmospheric emissions due to production waste, the chemistry of eco-sustainable fabrics)

The articles contained in list B (213) were excluded as beyond the scope of the research. The full text of the 193 articles included in list A were thoroughly examined and subjected to the last exclusion criterion. Also, in this case, two researchers read the papers in parallel, plus a third one in case of doubt (Cerchione & Esposito, 2016 ). In this step, we excluded 32 documents not related to the research topic. To identify the remaining potentially important studies in our set, we used the 'snowball' strategy as an inclusion criterion (Greenhalgh & Peacock, 2005 ). We included 17 additional publications, and the final sample thus consists of 178 papers.

4 Descriptive analysis

The purpose of the descriptive analysis is to provide a general view of the papers on sustainability in the TAF industries. For the evaluation of the 178 papers selected, four viewpoints were identified: 1) distribution of papers over time; 2) distribution of papers across journals; 3) distribution of papers by methodology; and 4) distribution of papers by country.

4.1 Distribution of papers over time

Figure  2 shows the distribution of the selected papers published between 2000 and 2022. The number of papers written has grown exponentially, reaching a maximum of 38 in 2021. The data collection was conducted in October 2022. According to this analysis, in the last five years, research on sustainability in TAF industries has grown significantly. Indeed, approximately 85% of the papers examined were written between 2017 and October-2022.

Papers over time

4.2 Distribution of papers across journals

The journals that published at least three papers on sustainability in the TAF industries from 2000 to October 2022 are classified in Fig.  3 . The top journals publishing on the research topic have a broader scope and belong to different areas, confirming that the analysis of sustainability issues in the TAF industries have grown over the years in a broader range. In particular, Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management (14), followed by Journal of Cleaner Production (9), International Journal of Consumer Studies (7), Journal of Business Research (6), and Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management (6), Journal of Business Ethics (3), Business Strategy and the Environment (3), and Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics (3). According to the SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) updated to the year 2020, used to determine each journal's scientific importance, all of the journals displayed in Fig.  3 are in the first quartile (Q1), except for Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics and International Journal of Consumer Studies , which are in the second quartile (Q2).

Papers published per journal

4.3 Distribution of papers by methodology

The distribution of papers by methodology represented in Fig.  4 shows that about 50% of the studies are based on quantitative approaches (e.g. surveys and mathematical models), while 23% of the papers use qualitative approaches (e.g. single and multiple case studies). A few other papers use conceptual approaches, literature review approaches, and mixed approaches (combining qualitative and quantitative methods).

Papers by methodology

4.4 Distribution of papers by country

This analysis highlights the most productive countries in the research field investigated. Notably, certain papers were co-authored by researchers from different countries, while authors from the same nationality co-authored others. The country of each researcher who co-authored the article is counted in the first situation. On the contrary, the country is only counted once, even if two or more researchers from the same country co-authored the paper. As shown in Fig.  5 , USA is at the top of the ranking with 35 publications, followed by the UK (26), and China (25).

Papers by country

5 Content analysis

5.1 keywords analysis.

This analysis found 833 different keywords in the sample of 178 papers. The research focused on keywords that had at least eight repetitions (Liboni et al., 2019 ). Consequently, a total of 25 unique keywords were chosen (Fig.  6 ). In particular, the keyword “sustainability” emerged as the most recurrent with 45 repetitions, followed by “consumption” (26), “circular economy” (24), “fashion” (23), and “corporate social responsibility” (20).

Co-occurrence analysis of keywords

“Appendix 1 " highlights the 20 most cited keywords and their total link strength. The most frequent keywords offer an in-depth understanding of the critical topics investigated. Furthermore, the keyword sustainability is strongly linked with the others, and its relationship with "fast fashion", "supply chain", and "consumption" highlights that scientific literature in the TAF domain is extensively focused on studying more sustainable business models which can reduce the environmental footprint in all the phases of the supply chain. The term “fast fashion” refers to a business model defined by constant shift, innovation, affordability, and disposable patterns concerning low-cost apparel products that replicate existing luxury fashion trends (Joy et al., 2012 ). Diverse scientific studies have confirmed that fast fashion's disposal nature leads to serious environmental, health, social, and economic issues (Shirvanimoghaddam et al., 2020 ). As a result, various alternative business models have been developed. For instance, the clothing product-service system (PSS) recognises various sustainability targets as an alternative to the effects of consumption and fast fashion (Johnson & Plepys, 2021 ). This business model is based on rental rather than purchase, allowing to extend the useful life of a garment and reduce waste. Thus, PSS shifts the emphasis to complementary service offerings, which dematerialises and decouples consumer loyalty from material use (Adam et al., 2017 ). Another primary problem for fashion companies' is the supply chain length and complexity, causing coordination and sustainability concerns. According to Carlson and Bitsch ( 2018 ), a sustainable supply chain is a crucial element for industry, government, and civil society. Recent research highlights that fashion retailers often engage procurement intermediaries to handle their international sourcing with suppliers from manufacturers operating in developing countries, improving coordination and transparency (Koeksal et al., 2018 ).

5.2 Cluster analysis based on abstract terms

In our sample of articles, the co-occurrence analysis of abstract terms has shown 3657 different recurrent words. However, we selected only terms with at least nine repetitions and just 27 terms resulted in the analysis (Liboni et al., 2019 ). Figure  7 displays its network visualisation. “Appendix 2 ” highlights the 20 most recurrent abstract terms and their relevance score. Using VOSviewer, we divided the abstract terms into three different research clusters:

Cluster 1: consumer behaviour concerning sustainable clothing consumption

Cluster 2: circular economy and corporate social responsibility issues in the TAF industries

Cluster 3: impact of sustainability initiatives on corporate performance.

Co-occurrence network of abstract terms

5.2.1 Consumer behaviour concerning sustainable clothing consumption

This cluster is focused on sustainable clothing consumption through the lens of consumer behaviour. The consumer's vision of eco-sustainable clothing is a central theme in the literature on TAF industries. The previously reserved attention for an elite audience is now directed to an increasingly widespread profile of evolved consumers who are more interested in the origin of what they buy and the traceability of the supply chain. Therefore, the customer plays a crucial role in the sustainable context, so it is vital to understand his point of view towards eco-sustainable, recycled, or used products. The majority of contributions included in this cluster are surveys, in which the relationship between the constructs was tested chiefly through structural equation modelling (SEM). In light of the theory of planned behaviour, most of these studies investigate the factors influencing sustainable apparel purchase intention (e.g. Dhir et al., 2021 ; Hwang et al., 2020 ; Kang et al., 2013 ; Karaosman et al., 2015 ; Nguyen et al., 2019 ; Sobuj et al., 2021 ; Zhao et al., 2019 ), revealing that sustainable clothing buying is positively correlated with different antecedents, such as green confidence, environmental awareness, social media usage, environmental attitude, labelling satisfaction, subjective norms, and perceived behavioural regulation. Other studies focused specifically on the young generations. For example, Varshneya et al. ( 2017 ) surveyed young consumers to explore how green consumption principles and social influence affect buying organic clothing. In particular, using a multinominal logit model, Rothenberg and Matthews ( 2017 ) determined the primary factors influencing young consumers to buy eco-friendly t-shirts. The findings suggest that consumers prioritised price, followed by the location of production, and finally, sustainability issues. Other studies analysed the existing attitude-behaviour gap and examined consumers' barriers to buying green clothing (Jacobs et al., 2018 ; Wiederhold & Martinez, 2018 ). Finally, Byrd and Su ( 2020 ) surveyed 399 US consumers to discover how they feel about apparel brands and how they behave when it comes to environmentally friendly, affordable, and socially conscious clothing. Further research focused on the motivations for using sharing economy platforms (Lee & Huang, 2020 ; Ek Styvén and Mariani, 2020 ), indicating that consumers' intentions to use online fashion rental services were positively affected by different factors, such as behaviours, subjective norms, perceived environmental sustainability, economic motivation, and distance from the consumption system. On another note, Silva et al. ( 2021 ) revealed that social shame and consumers' lack of knowledge about available outlets are the factors that most negatively affect the purchasing of second-hand clothing.

Moreover, many studies examined recycled and reused products from various perspectives. Some researchers investigated how consumers handle their apparel waste, including reselling, swapping, taking back, and donating (Lai & Chang, 2020 ; Weber et al., 2020 ), highlighting that environmental principles and prosocial attitudes affected customers' decisions to donate clothes. Other studies surveyed random samples to investigate consumer recycling and reusing apparel behaviour (Paco et al., 2021 ; Zurga et al., 2015 ). Further, Park and Lin ( 2020 ) examined the discrepancy between purchasing purpose and purchase experience in recycled and upcycled fashion items. Other studies focused on behaviour intentions for the consumption of reused clothing, recycled clothes, and upcycled garments (Chaturvedi et al., 2020 ; Kim et al., 2021 ). Notably, Meng and Leary ( 2021 ) explored consumer perception concerning the transformation of recycled bottles into new clothes. Consumers perceive this practice negatively for hygienic reasons, reducing purchasing intent. Finally, Cruz-Cardenas et al. ( 2019 ) conducted a multiple case study based on 20 thorough interviews followed by a survey of 425 consumers to investigate the factors affecting clothing reuse, highlighting different antecedents, such as income and altruism.

5.2.2 Circular economy and corporate social responsibility issues in the TAF industries

This cluster concerns CE and CSR issues in the TAF industries. Unlike the previous one, this cluster includes many explorative studies since the CE and CSR implementation is still in its early stages, necessitating a more detailed understanding based on qualitative analysis (Colucci & Vecchi, 2021 ). In particular, the CE principles significantly improve sustainability in the way textile products are fabricated, consumed and disposed of (Staicu & Pop, 2018 ). Different frameworks have been developed to help fashion companies transition from a linear to a CE model (e.g. Mishra et al., 2021 ). Indeed, several critical factors need to be explored for developing a circular product in the textile industry context, such as sustainable product design and reverse logistics (Franco, 2017 ). Concepts such as repairability, recyclability, longevity, and reuse and disposal of products are much debated in the literature. Although they are still at the early stages, different methods for reusing, recycling, and regenerating textile waste as well as various technological innovations and plans for a circular textile economy have been developed (Shirvanimoghaddam et al., 2020 ). In this regard, Moazzem et al. ( 2021 ) used the life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology to evaluate environmental benefits due to different textile waste recycling opportunities. The findings show that cleaning wipes recycling has the most significant impact benefits, followed by cotton fibre, insulation material, and polyester raw material recycling. Sandvik and Stubbs ( 2019 ) conducted a multiple case study based on semi-structured interviews to determine drivers and barriers to implementing a textile-to-textile recycling technology in the Scandinavian fashion industry. Restricted technology (which makes separating materials difficult), high research and development costs, and the supply chain complexity (which includes many stakeholders involved in the manufacture), represent the key barriers. Simultaneously, the design and use of new fabrics and increased apparel collection and collaboration are the main drivers.

Furthermore, many studies used a case study approach to investigate the challenges and solutions that fashion brands face while developing and testing CE strategies within their current business models (Kant Hvass & Pedersen, 2019 ; Colucci & Vecchi, 2021 ). The findings show that fashion companies face several obstacles in implementing circular business models in their organisations, including divergent perspectives of value and undefined performance metrics, weak alignment with the current strategy, a lack of internal skills and competencies, and a lack of customer interest. Further, Paras et al. ( 2018 ) conducted a multiple case study based on semi-structured interviews with Swedish companies to explore the reuse-based clothing value chain drivers. The results suggest that the main drivers are corporate factors (system, legislation, and awareness), product features (design, quality and price), and consumer attitude (donor and purchaser).

Other studies focused on the slow fashion movement. According to Onur ( 2020 ), the slow fashion movement believes that the fashion industry should not continue operating in the same way it has in the past, putting the world’s finite resources at risk. As a result, the author offered a detailed account of creating new learning methods and designing via upcycling, craft, and collaboration in developing countries. For instance, Friedrich ( 2021 ) investigated the potential of applying biobased products in the textile industry, making the economy more sustainable and lowering the dependence on synthetic materials. Tama et al. ( 2017 ) surveyed Turkish university students to investigate clothing awareness and attitudes regarding environmental sustainability and slow fashion, and the findings highlighted a lack of knowledge about the slow fashion paradigm.

Moreover, some of the studies analysed circular business models based on clothing swapping, PSSs, and collaborative fashion consumption (CFC). Notably, clothing swapping is an example of a circular solution that allows extending the useful life of a product (Camacho-Otero et al., 2020 ), while the CFC is an economic model focused on clothing sharing, second-hand purchases, and renting or leasing (Zamani et al., 2018 ). Compared to a traditional ownership-based consumption model, the CFC offers environmental benefits due to the extension of the clothes’ useful life. On another note, Bech et al. ( 2019 ) used the LCA approach to assess and compare a PSS business model’s environmental impact on t-shirts and a reference business model.

Furthermore, different studies used the multiple case study design to examine CSR strategies’ drivers and barriers (Govindasamy & Suresh, 2018 ; Guedes et al., 2017 ; Koeksal & Straehle, 2021 ; Van & Nguyen, 2019 ), showing that the main drivers are the competitive context, the social influences, the managers’ knowledge of CSR, the company’s internal culture, as well as market promotion and building a reputation with stakeholders and the government. Additionally, the most significant obstacles were a lack of resources in expertise, information, finance, and training, as well as the cost of CSR initiatives and internal and external communication. Further obstacles were the complexity of the green process and system design, as well as the lack of regulatory support (Majumdar & Sinha, 2018 ).

5.2.3 Impact of sustainability initiatives on corporate performance

The studies of this cluster investigated how different sustainable initiatives affect corporate performance (Chan et al., 2020 ; Saha et al., 2021 ; Sudusinghe & Seuring, 2020 ; Wong & Ngai, 2021 ; Yang & Jang, 2020 ). In particular, Ali et al. ( 2020 ) revealed that fashion companies that successfully implemented ISO 14001 environmental management system (EMS) reported substantial efficiency improvements compared to companies that have not yet EMS.

Specifically, some studies focused on the sustainable supply chain, which is achieved when the objectives are shared by all the actors involved. This entails reconsidering production flows, operations, and materials, limiting the polluting effects that flow into the environment, limiting production waste, extending the life cycle of the products, and improving social conditions. Kumar et al. ( 2020 ) used the Delphi-based fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Process approach to identify long-term factors for implementing social responsibility-based sourcing in the ready-made apparel supply chain in Bangladesh. Further, Ashby ( 2018 ) used an in-depth case study to explore how a closed-loop supply chain (CLSC) can improve the environmental performance of a UK clothing company. The results highlight the crucial role of strategic resources and a shared vision and culture among the company and its suppliers, from a more reactive environmental damage prevention plan to a comprehensive CLSC. Jesus Munoz-Torres et al. ( 2021 ) used the LCA method to quantify textile companies’ environmental impact throughout the supply chain and compare their performance with global and sectorial sustainability challenges. The findings reveal a connection between global environmental issues and corporate environmental disclosure.

5.2.4 Taxonomy of CE and CSR drivers and barriers

Based on the previous literature, Table 2 highlights the main factors which potentially affect the propensity of fashion companies to adopt CE and CSR principles, as well as the main barriers hindering their implementation. The proposed taxonomy might serve as a starting point for more empirical research.

6 Discussions and future research directions

The descriptive analysis provided a general overview of the articles included in the literature review, highlighting that, in recent years, there is growing attention on sustainability in the TAF industries and that these topics present different scopes, belong to different disciplines, and are covered by different journals.

The content analysis of the selected articles highlighted the literature’s strengths and weaknesses, thus identifying current research and providing research ideas for future investigation. It is possible to classify the selected papers into five main research areas: 1) consumer behaviour; 2) circular economy; 3) corporate social responsibility; 4) business models; and 5) supply chain management. Table 3 offers a more in-depth discussion of existing research and future research suggestions for each of these scientific areas.

The first research area discusses the drivers influencing sustainable apparel purchasing (e.g. labelling satisfaction and environmental awareness), clothing reuse (e.g. income and altruism), as well as different clothing disposal behaviour (e.g. donation and recycling). Firstly, future research could perform a meta-analysis to generalise the empirical results of previous quantitative investigations on sustainable clothing consumer behaviour, thereby obtaining more robust conclusions than those drawn from each study. Further, as the production activities, business processes and materials contribute to an increase in the global pollution rate, eco-design features, ecological materials, processes with low environmental impact, and waste reduction have been developed in recent years (Heinze, 2020 ). This area shows the need for a more in-depth analysis of the eco-design characteristics that positively influence the ethical clothing consumer’s purchase intentions. Further, there is also a lack of studies investigating the efficiency and effectiveness of the communication tools adopted by TAF companies to encourage consumers to purchase sustainable clothing. For instance, compared to traditional channels, such as reports and advertising campaigns, corporate websites are constantly being used to present the business’ formalised and official viewpoint on CSR activities (Mann et al., 2014 ). The consumers’ opinion on this aspect could therefore be more in-depth analysed in further investigation.

The second research area focuses on drivers and barriers to adopting CE strategies in the TAF industries. In the TAF industries, due to the variety of fabrics and clothing accessories used, such as buttons and zips, end-of-life textiles are difficult to handle after disposal (Marques et al., 2020 ). Since there are presently few technologies available for separating recyclable textile waste from non-recyclable textile waste, employees still do much of the job by hand (Centobelli et al., 2022 ). Future studies could therefore design and develop new technological advances for managing and sorting textile waste. Automating the process and launching it on an industrial scale will therefore be the key to a real revolution in the world of fabrics.

Furthermore, many of the articles we analysed use the LCA methodology to evaluate companies’ environmental impact throughout the supply chain. However, there is a lack of studies examining the environmental and economic impact of different sustainable and circular clothing using the LCA and Life Cycle Costing (LCC) methodologies. Indeed, the integration of these methods will provide a holistic understanding of sustainable clothing production, allowing companies to choose materials that guarantee greater added value and which at the same time respect the environment.

The third research area is mainly focused on CSR drivers and barriers. Organisations require greater attention to social and environmental issues to develop a successful business. As a result, companies are changing their modus operandi, developing sustainable initiatives from a social and environmental point of view. According to Zhu et al., ( 2016 ), businesses are under pressure from stakeholders to reduce the negative environmental impact they generate while increasing CSR initiatives. Companies recognise the strategic importance of reacting to stakeholder concerns as a means of strengthening their competitive position (Zhu et al., 2016 ). Consequently, future studies on the analysis of stakeholder concerns in the context of TAF industries are needed to develop a holistic corporate sustainability strategy.

The fourth research area discusses different types of business models in the field of TAF industries. A vast majority discusses the PSSs and the fast fashion model. However, this area highlights the need for a more comprehensive analysis of the slow fashion business model. Slow fashion is based on various principles, such as the quality of the products, the recycled and eco-compatible materials, and the short supply chain (Jung & Jin, 2016 ). Consequently, this type of business requires greater awareness of consumers and manufacturers, as it tends to reduce the production cycle and consequently consumption. Slow fashion is aimed at safeguarding the climate, workers, natural resources, and the economy. However, due to the higher costs of slow fashion products compared to mass-produced clothes, the potential of slow fashion to make and maintain a profit represents a critical point that should be explored better. It is necessary to investigate the external pressures affecting the development of the slow fashion business model, also considering all the issues related to the transition to this new type of business model. Further, there is a lack of studies examining the circular business model innovations in the TAF industries (Henry et al., 2020 ). More in detail, according to the taxonomy proposed by Urbinati et al., ( 2017 ), three types of circular companies can be identified: downstream, upstream, and full circular companies. Downstream circular businesses follow a pricing scheme or a marketing strategy focused on product use and re-use, but these contributions neglect the necessary changes at the supplier level or internal processes or product design. On another note, upstream circular companies are described as those that implement circular solutions internally (e.g. using recycled raw materials) and focus on the interactions with their suppliers. Finally, full circular companies implement both downstream and upstream circular business model innovations. As a result, future studies could examine the degree of circularity of the TAF companies, analysing if circular business model innovations are implemented downstream, upstream, or both.

Finally, the fifth research area mainly focuses on the analysis of different social and environmental sustainability challenges along the fashion supply chain. From this research area emerged the need to explore the role of digital technologies in improving sustainability performance. Indeed, digital enabling technologies like blockchain can guarantee the complete traceability and transparency of products, thus optimising the entire supply chain and improving company performance (Centobelli et al., 2021 ). Consequently, these technologies could be an excellent resource for TAF companies, representing a strategic tool for environmental protection and sustainable development and facilitating the spread of sustainable practices.

7 Conclusions and implications

7.1 contribution to the theory.

This paper offers a comprehensive analysis of sustainability trends in the TAF industries, providing different theoretical contributions and extending the results provided by previous research. We adopted bibliometric techniques (i.e. co-occurrence analysis of keywords and abstract terms) to support the content analysis phase of the review methodology and provide quantitative insights offering a holistic understanding of the research field, integrating CSR and CE aspects. Notably, the co-occurrence network of abstract terms revealed three main research clusters: (1) consumer behaviour concerning sustainable clothing consumption, (2) circular economy and corporate social responsibility issues in the TAF industries, and (3) sustainability challenges in the fashion industry. By thoroughly analysing these clusters, we developed a conceptual framework which integrates prior study findings, identifies research gaps, and provides potential directions for future research. Consequently, this study will help researchers and academicians work in this research area to identify unexplored sub-fields, which reflect some potential investigation areas for expanding scientific literature on the topic. Moreover, the proposed taxonomy of CE and CSR drivers and barriers in the fashion industry context could be used by researchers in future investigations as a reference point for conducting empirical studies.

7.2 Contribution to practice

This study offers different opportunities to the public authorities, businesses, and practitioners involved in the path towards sustainability in the TAF context. It provides a broad range of relevant knowledge regarding how sustainability and circularity principles are affecting TAF industries. Such knowledge is essential for managers of TAF industries since it allows them to innovate their business models and prosper in today's competitive environment, thus moving to less polluting production systems and improving company performance. Manufacturing companies, purchasing organisations, and other stakeholders could gain a deeper understanding of the problems, procedures, predictors, barriers, and challenges associated with implementing sustainable practices and developing the skills necessary to reduce environmental impacts and gain competitive advantages.

Furthermore, this study may have political implications. It is acknowledged that the TAF industries represent a major source of environmental pollution. Therefore, the results of this study may inspire governments to promote sustainable initiatives in the TAF industries. For instance, policies implemented by the governments may include incentives for using eco-sustainable and recycled materials or financing for the purchase of green technologies with a lower environmental impact. In addition, for TAF industries to achieve the SDGs, the government must promote cultural changes that move innovation from an individualistic logic bound only to profit maximisation to a collectivistic, communal and open logic based on sustainable development principles.

7.3 Limitations of the study

Although considerable attention was taken to ensure the study process's validity and outcomes, certain limitations must be acknowledged. First, despite we adopted a validation criterion to integrate papers published in different academic databases, we limited our initial search to papers published in the WoS database. Furthermore, we just looked at papers and reviews published in peer-reviewed journals, ignoring other types of publications, including conference proceedings and book chapters. Second, we used VOSviewer software to conduct the co-occurrence analysis of keywords and paper terms, but other statistical analysis and clustering methods can be used, such as coauthorship analysis. Another limitation is regarding the related concept (i.e. zero waste), which is not incorporated within the scope of this research. Further studies can expand the scope to such related concepts/theories.

Data availability

The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Analyzing genderless fashion trends of consumers’ perceptions on social media: using unstructured big data analysis through Latent Dirichlet Allocation-based topic modeling

• Hyojung Kim   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-9422-1944 1 ,
• Inho Cho 1 &
• Minjung Park   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-3040-2759 1  

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After the development of Web 2.0 and social networks, analyzing consumers’ responses and opinions in real-time became profoundly important to gain business insights. This study aims to identify consumers’ preferences and perceptions of genderless fashion trends by text-mining, Latent Dirichlet Allocation-based topic modeling, and time-series linear regression analysis. Unstructured text data from consumer-posted sources, such as blogs and online communities, were collected from January 1, 2018 to December 31, 2020. We examined 9722 posts that included the keyword “genderless fashion” with Python 3.7 software. Results showed that consumers were interested in fragrances, fashion, and beauty brands and products. In particular, 18 topics were extracted: 13 were classified as fashion categories and 5 were derived from beauty and fragrance sectors. Examining the genderless fashion trend development among consumers from 2018 to 2020, “perfume and scent” was revealed as the hot topic, whereas “bags,” “all-in-one skin care,” and “set-up suit” were cold topics, declining in popularity among consumers. The findings contribute to contemporary fashion trends and provide in-depth knowledge about consumers’ perceptions using big data analysis methods and offer insights into product development strategies.

Introduction

Consumers’ blogs and social network opinions have become a valuable resource for gaining marketing insights and relationship management (Zhang et al., 2009 ). As social media has profoundly changed our lives, the widespread adoption of social media sources has generated a vast amount of textual data. Knowledge acquired from social networks interacts with consumers and affects many companies to find their competitive advantage in improving brand products or services (Governatori & Iannella, 2011 ; He et al., 2013 ). Consumer-driven fashion trends and continuous social media monitoring has created new paradigms of trend emergence, which lead to the discovery of key values for brands. For example, the traditional runway collections’ design aspects indicated the upcoming fashion trends; however, a social media platform with real-time content posted by consumers, influencers, and brands became streamlined fashion trends (Yotka, 2020 ).

Trend analysis is a technique that attempts to collect information and discover patterns and estimate future predictions (Immerwahr, 2004 ). The fashion industry adapts the trend analysis using the text-mining technique to predict consumer nature, which is associated with business success. The growth of Web 2.0 and social networks has increased the demand for unstructured data such as news, images, and videos online. According to IBM’s report, unstructured data accounted for 93% of the total data in 2020, and it is estimated that 1.7 MB of data are generated every second (Trice, 2015 ). Liu et al. ( 2011 ) found that 80% of an organization’s information consists of text documents, and that using automated computer techniques is essential to exploit the knowledge from the vast amount of text. However, investing consumers’ preferences and adaptation behaviors toward fashion trends is difficult because social media text-based communication analysis is costly and complicated in processing natural language.

The fashion trend implies various societal types and numerous clothing style choices according to different types of societies. Liberal society members tend to be more accepting of radical changes and innovation, while the conservative society community prefers to maintain its conventional costume (Kawamura, 2018 ). South Korea is famous for its highly fashion-conscious consumers who rapidly adjust to emerging trends (Hounslea, 2019 ), as they are willing to engage in digital technology development (Chakravorti et al., 2020 ). At 87%, South Korea’s social media rate is the third highest in the world, enabling consumers to easily follow current widespread trends and to generate new information (Shim, 2020 ). Given that gender fluidity in fashion has seen a recent boom globally since 2018 (Menkes, 2018 ), the genderless concept began to expand as the trend of emphasizing gender diversity expanded in South Korea. Szmydke ( 2015 ) explained that the traditional fashion industry has been providing design and service based on gender identity; however, masculinity and femininity have diversified with the advent of genderless fashion trends. In addition to the importance of the individual’s unique taste on style, current consumers independently define and express their gender identity (Kopf, 2019 ). Clothing is not only a simple method to express one’s lifestyle, but also a strong tool to represent one’s characteristics. Fifty-six percent of Gen-Z consumers who have a spending power of over 140 billion dollars shop outside of their designated gendered area (Marci, 2020 ), and searches for the term “genderless fashion” increased by 52% (Lyst, 2019 ). Moreover, 51% of gender-neutral global fragrance items were launched in 2018 (Murtell, 2019 ), and many fashion brands promoted a campaign of diversity and inclusivity in terms of gender, ethnicity, and body image. The men’s cosmetic market has grown 1.4 times in 5 years—reaching 1.4 trillion KRW (Lee, 2019 ) in South Korea in response to preferences for genderless items.

Therefore, the demand for adapting the genderless fashion trend has risen among general consumers and gender-neutral apparel has strode into retail prominence. Although very few studies have analyzed fashion trends in consumer behavior using the text-mining technique (Blasi et al., 2020 ; Rickman & Cosenza, 2007 ), no previous studies have focused solely on consumers’ perceptions of genderless fashion trends. Moreover, many researchers have explored genderless fashion in terms of design style elements, collection image characteristics, and sociocultural impact (Jordan, 2017 ; Rocha et al., 2005 ; Shin & Koh, 2020 ; Xu & Li, 2012 ) through qualitative research methods. The prominent genderless fashion trend is increasing, and the massive amount of big data has made it possible to understand consumers’ requirements and demands. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to evaluate consumers’ awareness of the current genderless fashion trend using the text-mining method. Therefore, this study demonstrates the genderless fashion trend perception among consumers on social media by applying textual data. More specifically, this research aims to answer the following questions.

What major keywords do consumers use when commenting on genderless fashion?

What are the main topics of genderless fashion and how do consumers perceive it?

How have the genderless fashion trends changed over time?

To investigate the research questions, we utilized a probabilistic topic modeling approach known as Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA; Blei et al., 2003 ; Griffiths & Steyvers, 2004 ; Newman & Blocks, 2006 ) for consumers’ narrative postings on community sites such as blogs and online communities. LDA-based topic modeling is a supervised machine learning algorithm used to extract latent topics from the thematic structure of large volumes of texts (Elgesem et al., 2015 ). The computational content-analysis of LDA-based topics enables the classification of large amounts of unstructured text documents. Consequently, LDA-based topic models are efficient in discovering and describing hidden semantic structures in a collection of texts (Koltsova & Shcherbak, 2015 ). In particular, we analyzed the search keyword “genderless fashion” on the portal site NAVER ( http://www.naver.com )—the largest web search engine in South Korea. We then examined consumers’ perceptions of genderless fashion over the past 3 years by collecting their texts from blogs and online communities. After the data cleansing and preprocessing procedures, we specified the top keywords to extract the topics. Then, an n-gram analysis (Wallach, 2006 ) was applied to categorize the continuous sequence of high-order phrases from the morphologically analyzed texts. To define the number of topics, perplexity and coherence tests were examined for interpretability verification. The intertopic distance map (IDM; Blei et al., 2003 ) was used to determine the similarity of the chosen topics using a graphic plot showing the specific gravity of the topic and the distance among the topics. Finally, the selected topics were labeled and compared with the representative documents, and a time-series analysis was performed to measure the topic trend change.

This study advances our in-depth understanding of genderless fashion trends and contains diverse perspectives on consumers’ behaviors and interests. This study explains how fashion trends are perceived and commercialized, related to consumers’ use of social media. Further, we extend our research on fashion trend analysis by applying text-mining algorithms to extract the most relevant topics, which goes beyond the findings in the existing literature. Despite the high level of demand among consumers in the pursuit of acceptance of various gender identities in the fashion industry, relevant studies are scarce. In this context, research on genderless fashion trend analysis based on a consumer-driven text-mining analysis is essential, and the current findings will enable fashion brands to forecast customers’ preferences for purchasing gender-neutral products and develop marketing strategies through social media channels.

Literature review

• Genderless fashion trend

The genderless fashion phenomenon has recently emerged as a new standard and has been cited as a major trend among consumers (Bernard, 2018 ; Kerpen, 2019 ; Segalov, 2020 ). The term “genderless” is also referred to as “agender,” “gender fluidity,” “gender neutral,” “gender diversity,” and “gender-free”—all of which refer to the state of being without a clear gender identity (Robinson, 2019 ). It refers to using products and creating styles according to individual personality and taste from a neutral perspective, regardless of gender. Most societies define traits specific to a gender and orient their members in that direction (Risman & Davis, 2013 ); however, genderless is interpreted as a movement to remove the social division between women and men and regard them as neutral individuals. For example, the binarity of gender was classified into distinct male and female segmentations, producing various stereotypes and corresponding behaviors. Strict adherence to traits of masculinity and femininity were expected from each sex, and costumes reflected the resulting dichotomous social norms. The perception of gender was influenced by factors such as feminism and relevant social movements in the 1960s and the development of mass media and the change from biological sortation to social gender. This had an impact on “androgynous” styles in the 1970s and “glam” looks in the 1980s, which transformed into the “unisex” concept, described as suitable for both males and females (Bardey et al., 2020 ; Mills, 2015 ). Lee ( 2021 ) highlighted that unisex is different from genderless fashion in terms of distinguishing methods to differentiate gender; it is based on the gender distinction between men and women, and embraces the same design, whereas the genderless style does not dichotomize gender and encompasses a wide spectrum of gender identities.

Millennials and Generation Z have different values and lifestyles than the previous generations, particularly in relation to the traditional gender role distinction. As the leading groups of trends and consumption, they want to define and express their gender identity on their own because of their great desire to express their social influence and external images (Wertz, 2018 ). A recent survey indicated that 38% of Generation Z and 27% of Millennials, who will account for $143 billion purchasing power in the next 4 years (Anyanwu, 2020 ), agreed that an individual cannot be judged or determined by gender. With this in mind, high-end brands projected runway models indistinguishable in terms of gender, while masstige brands introduced retail strategies to eliminate the distinction between men’s and women’s products in stores or launched new public brands. In addition to women’s and men’s wear brands, one major children’s wear brand removed boys’ and girls’ labels from the store floor plan to reinforce the extensive product choice preferences (Newbold, 2017 ), eliminating gender stereotypes for their customers.

Text-mining analysis

Text-mining is an artificial intelligence technology that utilizes natural language processing to obtain meaningful information from vast unstructured textual data (Liu et al., 2011 ; Nishanth et al., 2012 ) or to estimate uncertain patterns (He et al., 2013 ). It includes the processes of editing and organizing several documents composed of words, characters, and terms (Nishanth et al., 2012 ). As a big data analytics extension technique, text-mining analysis examines large and varied data documents to uncover nontrivial information such as unknown correlations, customer preferences, and market trends that aid in the best decision making in the business (Hashimi et al., 2015 ). In particular, after the rapid increase in social network services, social media mining has been adopted to understand and interact with customers and gain a competitive advantage. According to Reports and Data ( 2020 ), the text-mining market will reach $16.85 billion by 2027 owing to the high rise in the adoption of social media platforms, and many business organizations have deployed text-mining analytics to transform data into competitive knowledge.

Many previous researchers have used text-mining techniques to analyze consumers’ brand sentiments (Mostafa, 2013 ), to measure consumer preferences (Rahman et al., 2014 ), and to survey the commerce trend on social media (Shen et al., 2019 ). Regarding fashion, Lang et al. ( 2020 ) evaluated consumers’ fashion-renting experiences through in-depth text analysis using LDA-based topic modeling, and Dang et al. ( 2016 ) classified fashion content texts from social networks using a support vector machine. Choi and Lee ( 2020 ) researched ethical fashion using text-mining with network analysis, and Lee et al. ( 2018 ) analyzed luxury fashion brands and mass brands’ evaluations of Twitter messages. Owing to the strong capabilities of text-mining techniques, many attempts have been made to analyze social media content to yield valuable findings on consumers’ behavior and sentimental values toward a brand. However, previous studies have dealt with relatively limited information, focusing solely on consumers’ perceptions of genderless fashion trends. Consequently, to analyze mainstream fashion trends and understand consumers’ interests, a text-mining method was employed for this study.

LDA-based topic modeling

In this study, LDA-based topic modeling (Blei et al., 2003 ) was utilized to extract customers’ perceptions of the genderless fashion trend on social media. Topic modeling allows the user to detect and summarize latent semantic structures, and LDA is the most common method for clustering abstract topics that occur in a collection of documents (Nabli et al., 2018 ). LDA assumes that documents consist of a mixture of topics, and that topics generate words based on probability distributions. As shown in Fig.  1 , Blei ( 2012 ) explained the LDA model algorithm as follows: the square boxes are called “plates” and “N” stands for a collection of words collected within a document, “D” for a collection of documents, and “K” for a set of topics. The circles represent probability parameters, and the node “ \({W}_{d,n}\) ” is observed as a word in the document; while topics, topic distributions, and topic assignments are not revealed. There are full words (“ \({W}_{d,n}\) ”) in the numerous documents (“D”) collected by the researchers, assuming that each word has a corresponding topic (“ \({Z}_{d,n}\) ”).

Graphics of document generation for LDA algorithm (Blei, 2012 , p. 81)

There are many different topics embedded in each document, and the distribution of topics differs. Therefore, LDA deduces the latent variables of the document through the words contained in the document and generates a specified number of topics from the document stack through the Dirichlet distribution. In this study, LDA-based topic modeling was adopted to understand the consumer-driven content of genderless trends in social media networks. Various researchers have explored LDA-based topic modeling to discover new knowledge about consumers’ communication. Bastani et al. ( 2019 ) analyzed the customer complaints of national financial agencies, and fashion design participants were analyzed to observe research trends (Jang & Kim, 2017 ). Gray et al. ( 2015 ) developed an LDA-based text-mining methodology to define fashion styles obtained from online apparel information with affiliate networks. In contrast to the approach of consumers’ research in the fashion industry conducted in the various studies discussed above, genderless fashion trend research is unknown. Therefore, we developed a primary approach to discover consumers’ preferences and interest in social media toward the genderless fashion trend with an LDA-based topic modeling proposal.

Data collection

We obtained data from the largest Korean search portal engine—NAVER—focusing on consumers’ online community and blog reviews for 3 years since the genderless fashion trend began (Menkes, 2018 ): from January 1, 2018 to December 31, 2020. To gain insights related to genderless fashion trends among consumers’ posts and communication, a search of the keyword “genderless fashion” was conducted, which produced 9722 posts. The web crawling program language Python 3.7 ( http://www.python.org ) was used to build the model. Consumers’ posting date, platform type, title, contents, and link information were gathered; the text-mining objects were title and content. Data were pre-processed to cleanse them of undesirable words, special characters, non-Korean words, and punctuation. Afterward, word tokenization was lemmatized and converted into the minimal unit of meaning formats such as nouns, adjectives, verbs, or adverbs in their dictionary forms. These words were accumulated in the bag-of-words model (Zhang et al., 2010 ), which represents a multiset of words regardless of word order. Words that occurred in 80% of the documents and in fewer than five documents were removed (Jauhari et al., 2020 ). Moreover, search keywords’ implied synonym words such as gender-neutral, gender fluid, gender diversity, and fashion that could have affected the results, were removed. Hence, only meaningful words relevant to the generation of the topics remained.

Measurement and research process

To perform the research data analysis, we used Python 3.7 to perform data processing and applied LDA-based topic modeling. The detailed research process flowchart, performed over four steps, is shown in Fig.  2 . First, the web crawling technique was performed using the keywords “genderless fashion” to collect consumers’ review posts on NAVER’s blogs and online communities. The number of keyword changes over 3 years was evaluated to estimate consumers’ preferences and interests. Second, data cleansing and preprocessing of unstructured text data were conducted to eliminate irrelevant or generic words. Consequently, the entire text document was into split into individual words, which is known as word tokenization. Then, stop-word removal and word lemmatization were applied to filter meaningful words on natural language data. For example, onomatopoeic words (“haha,” “nope,” etc.), emoticons, propositions (“the,” “a,” etc.), inappropriate words (“recently,” “more,” “really,” etc.) were removed. Then, the top 50 text frequency words and bigram rates were analyzed. Next, to analyze topic modeling based on the LDA algorithm, a topic model number was defined by applying the measure of perplexity and coherence parameters. Then, each topic model’s labeling was selected based on the observed keywords and representative documents associated with the high weight of the topic. In this step, an IDM was applied to determine the degree to which each topic was related to other topics and the degree of similarity between topics. Fourth, to measure the topic trend change over the past 3 years, we investigated the number of consumers’ posts containing each topic. Subsequently, a time-series linear regression analysis was performed to confirm the annual trends of the topic.

Research data processing flowchart

Status of consumers’ posts and media news about genderless fashion

We compared the number of posts over 3 years from 2018—when genderless fashion was cited as a major trend—to 2020 by crawling consumers’ blog and online community posts on NAVER and media news posts. In these 3 years, 9722 pieces of consumer-generated content about genderless fashion were uploaded, and the yearly trend showed that the number of online posts had steadily increased: 1435 postings in 2018, 2538 postings in 2019, and 5749 postings in 2020. Consistently, there were 104 online news articles in 2018, 524 in 2019, and 1008 in 2020. As shown in Fig.  3 , both consumers’ and media news outlets’ posts continued to increase, especially in 2020, when it doubled compared to 2019. Therefore, it was confirmed that consumers’ interest in genderless fashion has grown rapidly.

The number of consumers’ posts and media news for 3 years (2018–2020)

Text frequency

To analyze the key terms related to genderless fashion, we combined the titles and contents of consumers’ posts. Data cleansing and preprocessing were essential for generating meaningful topic modeling. We performed word tokenization to analyze the text dataset as a morpheme, turning it into the smallest unit of meaning through natural language processing (Bastani et al., 2019 ). To filter out unnecessary words, stop-word removal (Nabli et al., 2018 ) was conducted, eliminating undesirable fragments such as punctuation, single-letter words, grammatical errors, and numbers. The resulting set was extracted with only nouns and adjectives after word lemmatization, maintaining the basic dictionary form of a word after removing the inflectional endings. Accordingly, the frequency value of the occurrence of all extracted words was obtained, except for the words that appeared more than 80% of the time or in less than five documents. The top 45 keywords based on the extracted frequency are listed in Table 1 . The results of visualizing the top 50 of the highest frequency keywords from 4051 word lists is shown in Fig.  4 . Words with a high frequency of occurrence are expressed as bigger and bolder in the word cloud. To review the top-ranking frequency occurrence words, genderless fashion-related brands (e.g., Gucci, Olive Young) and merchandise (e.g., product, design, style, item, bag, pants, shirts, store, jacket, sunglasses, knit) were extracted in the fashion and beauty industry (e.g., clothes, cosmetics, hair, makeup, jewelry). Concerning color, black was the highest, followed by white, blue, gray, and green (in order).

Word cloud visualization results

N-gram analysis

We attempted to improve text classification by determining which words were connected in the unigram dataset. Bigram means that two-word phrases belong to the n-gram analysis method to generate contiguous word pairs in the corpus and gain the contextual word association (Crossley & Louwerse, 2007 ). It is also useful to compare bigrams in two different sentences because it allows us to identify the similarities and various types of words in context. The results of the top 35 bigrams from 6703 two-word lists are shown in Fig.  5 . Cosmetics (e.g., super hyalon, skincare, mask pack, moisture line, hand cream, basic cosmetics, skin moisturizer, BB cream), fragrance (e.g., perfume recommendation, body spray, Eau de perfume), fashion brands (Maison Martin Margiela, Thom Browne, Zadig & Voltaire, Push the Button, Bottega Veneta), and style-related items (oversize, wide pants, jogger pants, denim pants, wild slacks) appeared accordingly.

Results of the bigram analysis

Select the optimized number of topics

We analyzed the coherence score and perplexity score to evaluate the optimal number of topics as quantitative diagnostic metrics. The coherence score measures how frequently the top keywords of each topic co-occur to identify which of the top words contributes the most relevant information to the given topic (Blair et al., 2020 ). The perplexity score is an indicator of whether the topics are clearly classified, and it is assumed that the smaller the value, the better the actual literature results reflected by that topic (Inglis & Foster, 2018 ). Therefore, the smaller the perplexity value and the larger the coherence value, the more semantically consistent the topic model that is constructed. By calculating the perplexity and coherence values for all the words in the web-crawled document, we ensured that the LDA-based model achieved maximum coherence score and minimum perplexity score with the number of topics ( k  = 18; Fig.  6 ).

The interpretability of topic modeling

Topic selection and labeling

The IDM for topics extracted from topic modeling in this study is shown in Fig.  7 . IDM is a diagram that shows the weight of a topic and the distance between topics, and makes it possible to understand the degree of relevance of each topic to other topics (Sievert & Shirley, 2014 ). The topic view is on the left, and the term bar charts with 18 topics selected are on the right. Selections are linked so that the researcher can briefly demonstrate the aspects of the relationship of the topic terms. The distribution of topics related to the subject shows that the proportion of each topic is similar, which confirms that the deviation is non-significant. Furthermore, because the topics do not altogether overlap with each other, the association between the topics is low, which means that each topic is divided into a relatively clear research area.

Intertopic distance map (IDM) of genderless fashion LDA topic modeling

We classified consumers’ perceptions of genderless fashion for 3 years by identifying keywords derived using LDA-based topic modeling algorithms and documents with a high weight of the topic. Table 2 shows the topic number corresponding to the keywords of the topic, the weight of the topic in the document, the date of the posting, and the title as an example from topic number one to five.

The topic labeling process was discussed and confirmed by five experts in the fashion and textile industries. Table 3 represents 18 topics and top keywords for genderless fashion trend topic modeling in accordance with the analysis of major keywords and documents with high topic weight in previous works.

Time-series analysis

To understand the trend of each topic by year, the year was applied as the independent variable, the weighted average value of the topic by year was used as the dependent variable, and a series linear regression analysis was performed. In addition, the values of the regression coefficient and the significance probability of the linear regression analysis were verified as criteria for judging the rise and fall of trends by year. Only those topics with a significant p-value (< 0.05) and a Durbin–Watson value greater than 1.5 and less than 2.5, if the regression coefficient value was positive, were classified as a “hot topic”; while, if negative, they were classified as a “cold topic,” and topics for which no meaningful result could be derived were classified as a “neutral topic” (Griffiths & Steyvers, 2004 ).

The hot topic that has been rapidly growing among consumers in the genderless fashion trend for the last 3 years was “perfume and scent.” In contrast, “bags,” “all-in-one skin care,” and “set-up suit” (i.e., a casual outfit that can be used together or worn separately with a jacket and pants) were cold topics, indicating that consumers’ interest in these gradually declined. The remaining topics were classified as neutral topics because they were non-significant in the time-series analysis (see Table 4 ).

The concept of gender diversity has begun to expand with the trend of focusing on individuals’ unique taste importance. Consumers began to self-define and express their gender identity and discuss it through social media channels. With access to massive amounts of unstructured data from blog and online community reviews, the purpose of this study was to identify consumers’ perceptions and preferences regarding genderless fashion based on the text-mining analysis approach. In particular, we selected the LDA-based topic modeling method to examine a large amount of qualitative information obtained from consumers’ posts.

Text data were collected from the search keywords “genderless fashion” on the NAVER portal site from January 1, 2018 to December 31, 2020. A total of 9722 postings were collected, word tokenization was conducted after data preprocessing and cleansing, and word frequency and n-gram analysis were performed to remove stop words. To determine the optimal number of topics, perplexity and coherence scores were evaluated, and 18 topic keywords were finally selected through the LDA algorithm analysis. To select each topic, the contents of the representative documents with a high weight of the topic were reviewed. Finally, a time-series regression analysis was performed to understand the trend of topics by year, and the hot topic of the uptrend and the cold topics of the downtrend were selected.

First, to review the text frequency and n-gram analysis results, our study findings revealed that consumers are interested in external images as independent individuals rather than meeting other people’s standards, and often talk about fashion brands (“Gucci,” “Maison Martin Margiela,” “KIVULI,” “Zadig & Voltaire,” “Push the Button,” “Bottega Veneta”), items (“clothes,” “bag,” “pants,” “shirts,” “jacket,” “sunglasses,” “jewelry,” “style”), and cosmetic and perfume products (“skin,” “sheet mask,” “skin moisturizer,” “makeup,” “body spray,” “body mist,” “hand cream,” “Eau de perfume,” “Super hyalon,” “BB cream,” etc.) related to genderless fashion. This indicates that consumers’ recommended products and styles of genderless fashion are affected by the diverse fashion labels collection. Consumers are interested in the coordination and design details of certain brand items related to the gender-neutral concept. In particular, beauty cosmetics and fragrances, which are dominated by female-oriented stereotypes, are now being highlighted, regardless of gender division, owing to the influence of genderless fashion trends among consumers. Kim ( 2021 ) stated that many brands are launching gender-free cosmetics, which has become an opportunity for male consumers’ interest in skin care to become specialized. These results can be understood in the same context as those of previous studies (Newbold, 2017 ; Reis et al., 2018 )—that genderless fashion is a response to the needs of the fluid market niche increase aside from femininity and masculinity stereotypes. Wertz ( 2018 ) also indicated that Millennials and Generation Z’s consumption trends value individuality and practicality rather than gender. Concerning color, An ( 2018 ) as well as Hong and Joo ( 2020 ) mainly pointed out that “pink” was the trendy color on gender-neutral menswear collections; however, we discovered that achromatic colors such as “black,” “white,” “gray” mentioned mostly among the consumers. The results suggested that the men’s collection combines colorful colors into genderless fashion, but our study confirmed that consumers prefer dark colors.

Second, 18 topics were analyzed from LDA-based algorithms and 13 topics were classified as fashion categories (i.e., “summer jewelry,” “men’s fashion & grooming,” “hairstyle & color,” “high-end fashion’s basic item,” “bags,” “FW fashion,” “collaboration,” “genderless concept models,” “luxury brand sunglasses,” “pants style,” “set-up suit,” “domestic eyewear brand,” and “capsule collection”), while 5 topics were classified as beauty and fragrance categories (i.e., “moisturizing skin care,” “perfume and scent,” “cosmetic beauty brands,” “body spray,” and “all-in-one skin care”). The fashion industry has provided designs and services differently according to gender (Szmydke, 2015 ); however, new product development and rebranding strategies have emerged in accordance with the gender fluidity change followed by consumer-driven change. Previous studies (Hong & Joo, 2020 ; Shin & Koh, 2020 ) have investigated genderless fashion in terms of design and style based on the collection images. Kim ( 2020 ) and Yang ( 2020 ) researched genderless trends in cosmetic brands’ advertisements. Hence, our results indicated that the main interest in the genderless concept of current consumers lies in the fashion and beauty fields by expanding existing qualitative studies using big data. In particular, South Korea’s male cosmetics consumption is number one in the global market (Im, 2016 ), which is consistent with our results. The effect of the gender fluidity phenomenon on the beauty industry was also revealed in our results (e.g., “super hylaon,” “LAKA”) as the genderless-only cosmetic brands.

Third, our time-series linear regression analysis revealed a hot topic (“perfume and scent”) and three cold topics (“bags,” “all-in-one skin care,” and “set-up suit”), while the rest were presented as neutral topics. The topic that has continuously grown among consumers in relation to the genderless fashion trend in the last 3 years has been “perfume and scent.” Certain brands of seasonal perfumes (“Jo Malone,” “Diptyque”) and scents (“Eau de perfume,” “common”) were mentioned among the consumers. As “gift” suggests in the topic, genderless fragrances have a sensuous and soft scent, which are easy to give as a present regardless of gender. According to BBC’s report, gender fluid fragrances have surged in popularity, increasing to 51% as compared to 17% in 2010 (Bolongaro, 2019 ). In contrast, “all-in-one cosmetics” attracted high consumer interest in the beginning, but they gradually declined in popularity. The high demand for “moisturizing skin care” indicates that male consumers used all-in-one products because of their convenient usage in the past; however, now they can choose exclusive genderless products, allowing them to choose their own products by function and purpose (Hong, 2020 ).

Considering the changes in consumers’ perception of fashion products, interest in bags has been declining. “Tote bags” and “size” were considered because of users’ light-weight concerns, and they referred to the brand look-book (“Beanpole”) or fashion week collection (“Juun. J,” “Push the Button”). Yoo ( 2020 ) explained that handbag brands have expanded the range of tote bags, particularly because of their unique characteristics as well as the effect of genderless fashion trends. The “set-up suit” topic also showed a steady decline. Business casual suits are tailored (“custom”) or users prefer practical styling with a comfortable pattern (“comfort”) along with the demand for female consumers. Demand for women’s suits increased with the growth of genderless fashion, but it seems that the demand has decreased owing to the recent increase in telecommuting under the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Conclusions

Existing research on genderless fashion trends has focused on the style characteristics shown in collections and advertisements (Hong & Joo, 2020 ; Kim & Lee, 2016 ; Yang, 2020 ). Therefore, there is a possibility that our subjectivity was involved and consumers’ perspectives were not included. Recently, the number of consumer-led products and brands has increased remarkably; therefore, consumers’ recognition of fashion trends is critical as they affect the industry enormously. A few studies have focused on consumer reviews on fashion subjects using the big data analysis method. Lang et al. ( 2020 ) investigated consumers’ fashion rental experiences, and Choi and Lee ( 2020 ) studied ethical fashion perception. However, this is one of the first studies that deals with consumers’ preferences for genderless fashion trends by applying text-mining and LDA-based topic modeling techniques. Through this computer-aid method, researchers can extract hidden implications or estimate patterns from a natural language dataset (Hashimi et al., 2015 ). To analyze and understand consumers’ behaviors in real-time is becoming essential; thus, we investigated consumers’ unstructured data in fashion trends analysis.

This study has managerial implications for product planners who develop merchandise based on recent trends. We found that consumers have a high interest in brands and products related to perfume, fashion, and cosmetics in terms of genderless fashion trends that can make their individuality stand out despite gender division. Therefore, when a product planner plans a merchandising product group targeting consumers, these product categories can be prioritized. In particular, given that the topic of “perfume and scent” has been on the rise among consumers, strategic promotions and collaboration with genderless fragrance brands can also be conceived.

The limitations of this study and suggestions for future research are as follows.

This study collected the text documents from consumers postings of blogs and online communities, therefore it is not focused solely on a specific generation. Because the genderless fashion is popularly accepted by Millennials and Generation Z (Anyanwu, 2020 ), it would be meaningful to closely consider the opinions of various generations in the future. Continuous research is expected to be conducted in the field of fashion and textiles, because text-mining research is still scarce and at its nascency. For future research projects, it is necessary to analyze not only consumer opinions related to genderless fashion trends, but also related articles introduced in the mass media. If in-depth analyses can be conducted in the aspects of social interest and the business industry, more insights can be gained to enhance the proposed model in this study.

Availability of data and materials

The datasets used and analyzed during the current study are available from the first author on reasonable request.

Abbreviations

Spring summer

Fall winter

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Making Fashion Sustainable: Waste and Collective Responsibility

Debbie moorhouse.

1 Department of Fashion & Textiles, University of Huddersfield, Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, UK

Fashion is a growing industry, but the demand for cheap, fast fashion has a high environmental footprint. Some brands lead the way by innovating to reduce waste, improve recycling, and encourage upcycling. But if we are to make fashion more sustainable, consumers and industry must work together.

As the demand for apparel and shoes has increased worldwide, the fashion industry has experienced substantial growth. In the last 15 years, clothing production has doubled, accounting for 60% of all textile production. 1 One particular trend driving this increase is the emergence of fast fashion. The newest trends in celebrity culture and bespoke fashion shows rapidly become available from affordable retailers. In recent years, a designer’s fashion calendar can consist of up to five collections per year, and in the mass-produced market, new stock is being produced every 2 weeks. As with many commodities today, mass production and consumption are often accompanied by mass wastage, and fashion is no different.

In fashion, trends rapidly change, and a drive to buy the latest style can leave many items with a short lifespan and consigned to the waste bin. Given that 73% of clothing ends up in landfills and less than 1% is recycled into new clothing, there are significant costs with regard to not only irreplaceable resources but also the economy via landfilling clothing. At present, it is estimated that £140 million worth of clothing is sent to landfills in the UK each year. 2 Although a significant proportion of recycled fibers are downgraded into insulation materials, industrial wipes, and stuffing, they still constitute only 12% of total discarded material.

The world is increasingly worried about the environmental and social costs of fashion, particularly items that have short lifespans. Mass-produced fashion is often manufactured where labor is cheap, but working conditions can be poor. Sweatshops can even be found in countries with stricter regulations. The transport of products from places of manufacture to points of sale contributes to the textile industry’s rising carbon footprint; 1.2 billion metric tons of CO 2 were reportedly emitted in 2015. 1 Textile dyeing and finishing are thought to contribute to 20% of the world’s water pollution, 3 and microfiber emission during washing amounts to half a million metric tons of plastic pollution annually. 4 Fashion’s water footprint is particularly problematic. Water is used throughout clothing production, including in the growth of crops such as cotton and in the weaving, manufacturing, washing, and dyeing processes. The production of denim apparel alone uses over 5,000 L of water 5 for a single pair of jeans. When you add this to consumer overuse of water, chemicals, and energy in the laundry process and the ultimate discard to landfills or incineration, the environmental impact becomes extremely high.

As demand for fast fashion continues to grow, so too does the industry’s environmental footprint. Negative impacts are starkly evidenced throughout the entire supply chain—from the growth of raw materials to the disposal of scarcely used garments. As awareness of the darker side of fashion grows, so too does demand for change—not just from regulatory bodies and global action groups but also from individual consumers. People want ethical garments. Sustainability and style. But achieving this is complicated.

Demand for Sustainable Fashion

Historically, sustainable brands were sought by a smaller consumer base and were typically part of the stereotype “hippy” style. But in recent years, sustainable fashion has become more mainstream among both designers and consumers, and the aesthetic appeal has evolved to become more desirable to a wider audience. As a result, the consumer need not only buy into the ethics of the brand but also purchase a desirable, contemporary garment.

But the difficulty for the fashion industry lies in addressing all sustainability and ethical issues while remaining economically sustainable and future facing. Sustainable and ethical brands must take into account fairer wages, better working conditions, more sustainably produced materials, and a construction quality that is built for longevity, all of which ultimately increase the cost of the final product. The consumer often wrestles with many different considerations when making a purchase; some of these conflict with each other and can lead the consumer to prioritize the monetary cost.

Many buyers who place sustainability over fashion but cannot afford the higher cost of sustainable garments will often forsake the latest styles and trends to buy second hand. However, fashion and second-hand clothing need not be mutually exclusive, as can be seen by the growing trend of acquiring luxury vintage pieces. Vintage clothing is in direct contrast to the whole idea of “fast fashion” and is sought after as a way to express individuality with the added value of saving something precious from landfills. Where vintage might have once been purchased at an exclusive auction, now many online sources trade in vintage pieces. Celebrities, fashion influencers, and designers have all bought into this vintage trend, making it a very desirable pre-owned, pre-loved purchase. 6 In effect, the consumer mindset is changing such that vintage clothing (as a timeless, more considered purchase) is more desirable than new products because of its uniqueness, a virtue that stands against the standardization of mass-market production.

Making Fashion Circular

In an ideal system, the life cycle of a garment would be a series of circles such that the garment would continually move to the next life—redesigned, reinvented, and never discarded—eliminating the concept of waste. Although vintage is growing in popularity, this is only one component of a circular fashion industry, and the reality is that the linear system of “take, make, dispose,” with all its ethical and environmental problems, continues to persist.

Achieving sustainability in the production of garments represents a huge and complex challenge. It is often quoted that “more than 80% of the environmental impact of a product is determined at the design stage,” 7 meaning that designers are now being looked upon to solve the problem. But the responsibility should not solely lie with the designer; it should involve all stakeholders along the supply chain. Designers develop the concept, but the fashion industry also involves pattern cutters and garment technologists, as well as the manufacturers: both producers of textiles and factories where garment construction takes place. And finally, the consumer should not only dispose, reuse, or upcycle garments appropriately but also wash and care for the garment in a way that both is sustainable and ensures longevity of the item. These stakeholders must all work together to achieve a more sustainable supply chain.

The challenge of sustainability is particularly pertinent to denim, which, as already mentioned, is one of the more problematic fashion items. Traditionally an expression of individualism and freedom, denim jeans are produced globally at 1.7 billion pairs per year 8 through mass-market channels and mid-tier and premium designer levels, and this is set to rise. In the face of growing demand, some denim specialists are looking for ways to make their products more sustainable.

Reuse and recycling can play a role here, and designers and brands such as Levi Strauss & Co. and Mud Jeans are taking responsibility for the future life of their garments. They are offering take-back services, mending services, and possibilities for recycling to new fibers at end of life. Many brands have likewise embraced vintage fashion. Levi’s “Authorized Vintage” line, which includes upcycled, pre-worn vintage pieces, not only exemplifies conscious consumption but also makes this vintage trend more sought after by the consumer because of its iconic status. All material is sourced from the company’s own archive, and all redesigns “are a chance to relive our treasured history.” 9

Mud Jeans in particular is working toward a circular business model by taking a more considered, “seasonless” approach to their collections by instead focusing on longevity and pieces that transcend seasons. In addition, they offer a lease service where jeans can be returned for a different style and a return service at end of life for recycling into new fiber. The different elements that make up a garment, such as the base fabrics (denim in the case of Mud jeans) and fastenings, are limited so the company can avoid overstocking and reduce deadstock. 10 This model of keeping base materials to a minimum has been adopted by brands that don’t specialize in denim, such as Adidas’s production of a recyclable trainer made from virgin thermoplastic polyurethane. 11 The challenge with garments, as with footwear, is that they are made up of many different materials that are difficult to separate and sort for recycling. These business models have a long way to go to be truly circular, but some companies are paving the way forward, and their transparency is highly valuable to other companies that wish to follow suit.

Once a product is purchased, its future is in the hands of the consumer, and not all are aware of the recycling options available to them or that how they care for their garments can have environmental impacts. Companies are helping to inform them. In 2009, Levi Strauss & Co. introduced “Care Tag for Our Planet,” which gives straightforward washing instructions to save water and energy and guidance on how to donate the garment when it is no longer needed. Mud Jeans follows a similar process by highlighting the need to break the habit of regular unnecessary washing and even suggesting “air washing.” 10

At the same time, designers are moving away from the traditional seasonal production cycle and into a more seasonless calendar. In light of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, Gucci’s creative director, Alessandro Michele, has announced (May 2020) that the Italian brand will end the traditional five fashion shows per year and will “hold shows just twice a year instead to reduce waste.” 12 This is a brave decision because it goes against the practice whereby designers were pressured for decades to produce more collections per year, but the hope is that it will be quickly followed by more brands and designers.

Transparency

The discussion around sustainable fashion practices has led to a growing demand from consumers for transparency in the supply chain and life cycle of fashion garments. Consumers want to be informed. They are skeptical of media hype and “greenwashing” by fast-fashion companies wanting to make their brand appear responsible. They want to know the origin of the product and its environmental and social impact.

Some companies are responding by seeking a better understanding of the environmental impacts of their products. In 2015, denim specializer Levi Strauss & Co. extensively analyzed the garment life cycle to consider the environmental impact of a core set of products from its range. The areas highlighted for greatest water usage and negative environmental impact were textile production and consumer laundry care; the consumer phase alone consumed 37% of energy, 13 fiber and textile production accounted for 36% of energy usage, and the remaining 27% was spent on garment production, transport, logistics, and packaging. 14 This life-cycle analysis has led to innovation in waterless finishing processes that use 96% less water than traditional fabric finishing. 15 As noted previously, transparency here also inspires the wider industry to do likewise. Other companies have also introduced dyeing processes that need much less water, and much work is focused on improving textile recycling.

But this discussion does not just apply to production. Some high-street brands are using a “take back” scheme whereby customers are invited to bring back unwanted clothing either for a discount on future purchases or as a way to offload unwanted items of clothing. Not only might this encourage consumers to buy more without feeling guilty, but the ultimate destination of these returned garments can also be unclear. Without further transparency, a consumer cannot make fully informed decisions about the end-of-life fate of their garments.

Collective Responsibility

The buck should not be passed when it comes to sustainability; it is about collective responsibility. Professionals in the fashion industry often feel that it is in the hands of the consumer—they have the buying power, and their choices determine how the industry reacts. One train of thought is that the consumer needs to buy less and that the fashion retail industry can’t be asked to sell less. However, if a sustainable life cycle is to be achieved, stakeholders within the cycle must also be accountable, and there are growing demands for the fashion industry to be regulated.

With the global demand for new clothing, there is an urgent need to discover new materials and to find new markets for used clothing. At present, garments that last longer reduce production and processing impacts, and designers and brands can make efforts in the reuse and recycling of clothing. But environmental impact will remain high if large quantities of new clothing continue to be bought.

If we want a future sustainable fashion industry, both consumers and industry professionals must engage. Although greater transparency and sustainability are being pursued and certain brands are leading the way, the overconsumption of clothing is so established in society that it is difficult to say how this can be reversed or slowed. Moreover, millions of livelihoods depend on this constant cycle of fashion production. Methods in the recycling, upcycling, reuse, and remanufacture of apparel and textiles are short-term gains, and the real impact will come from creating new circular business models that account for the life cycle of a garment and design in the initial concept. If we want to maximize the value from each item of clothing, giving them second, third, and fourth lives is essential.

Acknowledgments

Thank you for support, in writing this Commentary, to Dr. Rina Arya, Professor of Visual Culture and Theory at the School of Art, Design, and Architecture of the University of Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, UK.

Declaration of Interests

The author is the co-founder of the International Society for Sustainable Fashion.

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• Published: 27 March 2024

A global timekeeping problem postponed by global warming

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The historical association of time with the rotation of Earth has meant that Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) closely follows this rotation 1 . Because the rotation rate is not constant, UTC contains discontinuities (leap seconds), which complicates its use in computer networks 2 . Since 1972, all UTC discontinuities have required that a leap second be added 3 . Here we show that increased melting of ice in Greenland and Antarctica, measured by satellite gravity 4 , 5 , has decreased the angular velocity of Earth more rapidly than before. Removing this effect from the observed angular velocity shows that since 1972, the angular velocity of the liquid core of Earth has been decreasing at a constant rate that has steadily increased the angular velocity of the rest of the Earth. Extrapolating the trends for the core and other relevant phenomena to predict future Earth orientation shows that UTC as now defined will require a negative discontinuity by 2029. This will pose an unprecedented problem for computer network timing and may require changes in UTC to be made earlier than is planned. If polar ice melting had not recently accelerated, this problem would occur 3 years earlier: global warming is already affecting global timekeeping.

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April Fools' Day pranks: Apps to translate baby stoner sayings, a ghostbuster at Tinder

Every april 1, brands and companies want to get some laughs – and attention – with goofy new 'product' launches. here are some ideas from companies such as sweetgreen, welch's and omaha steaks..

If you don't like Mondays, this one may especially be grating. It's April Fool's Day , when you should trust no one and question everything.

The roots of April Fools' Day may date back before to before the 15th century. But the modern-day April Fools' Day has become a day to prank a friend, family member, co-worker − or your customers.

Even though some companies have had April Fools' pranks backfire , marketers continue to issue spoof products in attempts to get some laughs and attention.

Already ahead of April Fools' Day, 7-Eleven has hinted at a possible prank product: In addition to new Lemon Lime, Green Apple and Sweet Orange flavored 7-Select sparkling waters, out now with partner Miracle Seltzer, there's a fourth flavor coming April 1: Big Bite Hot Dog.

The hot dog-flavored water "combines the mouthwatering experience of 7-Eleven’s iconic Big Bite Hot Dog into one refreshing beverage – ketchup and mustard included," the convenience chain says in a press release . "Say goodbye to the days of alternating bites of a hot dog with sips of a beverage, now those on the go can swap the bun for bubbles."

Krispy Kreme: A special doughnut deal for April Fools' Day

Will Big Bite Hot Dog sparkling water be sold? Its availability will be announced April 1. However, some reporters were sent a can of the drink. USA TODAY can confirm that it definitely smells like hot dog water and has a smoky aftertaste.

If you are interested in trying it, both 7-Eleven and Miracle Seltzer have hinted at having some to give away on their Instagram pages. (If you get a can, share with a friend as it's 16 ounces.)

Here's a roundup of many of the brand-related April Fools’ gag announcements. You've been warned.

Sour cream & onion flavored soda

Despite the proliferation of crazy-flavored products including Peeps-flavored Pepsi , Frank's RedHot sauce-flavored Vlasic pickles and Doritos Nacho Cheese-flavored liquor , healthy soda brand OLIPOP and Pringles are not really teaming up to bring to market a Sour Cream & Onion soda.

The product would have been "a match made in heaven … to bring the delicious, tangy flavor of Pringles’ Sour Cream & Onion flavor to life in liquid form with prebiotic benefits," the companies said.

Stoner lingo translation app

Another dream team prank product: Rosetta Stoned, a mobile app from Rosetta Stone and medical marijuana company Fluent , that "bridges the conversational gap between novice users and seasoned stoners in any social setting."

Da da decoder

Infant equipment site BabyQuip has its own language-bridging lark: the “Baby Translator” app, to decode your baby's secret language.

"Say 'goodbye' to restless nights as you decode your baby's coos and cries instantly, providing you with the understanding you need as a parent, all in one convenient app," it promises.

An AI-powered plush doll

Custom stuffed animal maker Budsies already makes selfie plush dolls with a built-in voice recorder. Its April Fools' spoof: Artificial intelligence-enabled dolls that "come programmed to learn everything about you and to become your new best friend."

A 50-pound Bearabuddy

Sorry to the 3,500 or so who have already signed up to buy Bearaby's Jumbo Benji plush toy, which is four times the size of its regular weighted plush toys and twice as heavy as its heaviest weighted blanket . This isn't actually going to be sold. But it is real and will be making its home in the lobby at The Child Mind Institute in Harlem to welcome children and their families. More weighted plushies are due the day after April Fools' Day, the company says.

A sleeping bag to go bananas over

The Dole Banana Peel Sleeping Bag, conveniently promoted as being available on April Fools' Day only, is made from actual banana fiber and "allows parents to escape into their own cocoon of sensory deprivation."

A full-body cleaning suit

Outrageous clothing company Tipsy Elves has a special product for April Fools' Day: The Mopsie. You don't need paper towels anymore, you can use your body to clean up those messes, with this "innovative, wearable microfiber towel jumpsuit" for "effortlessly soaking up spills and messes with ease." There's also a Baby Mopsie for "hard to reach places."

Korean BBQ deodorant

Kevin's Natural Foods , which has paleo- and keto-certified ready-to-cook and easy-prep entrées, is touting a new line of personal care products inspired by its food dishes including Korean BBQ Deodorant, Cilantro Lime Toothpaste, Lemongrass Basil Shampoo and Tikka Masala Sunscreen.

"These new face, body and hair care essentials will help fans prioritize self-care inside and out," the company says. 

Omaha Steaks' meaty sprays

Omaha Steaks has its own personal care prank product: Meaty Spritz sprays with flavors such as Omaha Fog, Hog Haze, and Cock-a-Doodle-Dew.

"The world’s first protein-infused, flavor-packed, portable pump spray … (to) enjoy all the mouthwatering flavors of your Omaha Steaks gourmet favorites no matter how far away from the kitchen you are!" the company says.

Sriracha toothpaste

Asian sauce maker Lee Kum Kee , which makes Sriracha Chili Sauce and Sriracha Mayo Dressing, is introducing – not – its Siracha Mayo Toothpaste. It's "fiery and creamy goodness … is sure to spice up your morning dental routine."

Post-salad dental kit

Need some less powerful toothpaste? Sweetgreen offered these fanciful personal hygiene products as part of its Sweetgreen After Salad Kit, which is "designed with your pearly whites in mind … offering everything you need to freshen up post-meal."

Choose from Miso Ginger Toothpaste, Spicy Cashew Mints, Lime Cilantro Dental Floss, and Sweetgreen Toothbrush and Floss Picks.

Fruit juice lip gloss

More personal care prank products: Welch’s Juicyfuls Juicy Fruit Lip Gloss – now available in five flavors: grape, orange, peach, strawberry and raspberry – made with real juice from Juicefuls fruit snacks so "you get that irresistible sweet flavor you love, all in a lip gloss that's as fun as it is nourishing."

Protein-powered seasonings

Quest Nutrition , maker of protein powder, snacks and other products, has a prank product line of seasonings including All Purpose, Lemon Pepper, and Garlic Herb, each of which deliver "21g of protein, 2g of net carbs and less than 1g of sugar."

If you want to try Quest's real products, you can use code NOJOKE for free shipping on online orders over $49 April 1-3.

Superpowered Superfeet?

These would certainly come in hand on a run, but – sorry – it's a jogging joke. Superfeet SuperBoost Power E-Soles gives you 8 hours of continuous battery-powered boost, for almost Iron Man-like propulsion. "All the comfort and support of Superfeet , now with electrifying performance," the company says in a video about the prank product. "It's like having a powerful electric motor in your shoes."

Scotch tape-branded Scotch?

This shenanigan seems like a blend that could stick: Scotch Whisky by Scotch Brand. The whisky "features a nose of cherry wood and a delightfully smooth finish that hits like a well-wrapped gift."

Who you gonna call when ghosted? This new title at Tinder

Dating app Tinder announced a new April Fools' Day hiring quest for a Vice President of Ghost Hunting to help combat "one of dating culture’s most prevalent vices – ghosting," a practice inflicted on 78% of singles already in 2024 (an untrue fact from Tinder).

Patrón's bringing back a beloved liqueur. No kidding.

Patrón patrons get some good news today. The premium tequila maker chose April Fools' Day to announce the return of its Patrón XO Cafe tequila-based coffee liqueur, which was discontinued in 2021. Since production ceased, devotees took to social media and signed a petition asking parent company Bacardi to bring it back.

Made with Patrón Silver tequila and Arabica bean coffee – the dry liqueur can be sipped straight, in cocktails and as dessert topping – Patrón XO Cafe will begin arriving in stores again later this month.

Say it with dead flowers

Don't forget to put roses on your April Fools' Day list. UrbanStems has this "special" delivery, The Dead Inside Collection, "an assortment of dead flower bouquets, dead plants, half empty vases, and more for the pessimist in your life." But, for real, check UrbanStems' social media accounts including Instagram for how to get 20% off an order of real flowers.

Cheesecake Factory's real deals

The Cheesecake Factory  also has a deal that's no joke: Sign up for the chain's Cheesecake Rewards loyalty program on April 1 to get an Any Slice, Half Price reward, redeemable for 50% off any slice of cheesecake or layer cake, with any food or beverage purchase (no gift cards).

Those who were members before April 1 will find something special in their account on Monday, too: either a free slice of cheesecake each month for a year, a free whole cheesecake, a free slice of cheesecake, $5 off $25 purchases, or $10 off $40 purchases. (All rewards redeemable by April 16; can be redeemed for dine-in, to-go and DoorDash.)

New merch from Dunkin', bonus points in app

Dunkin' announced it is going back to its roots and rebranding to just "Donuts'" on Monday, April 1. To celebrate the rebrand, the company is selling "Donuts'" merch, including sweatshirts that read "DONUTS," on ShopDunkin.com .

Additionally, Dunkin' Rewards members will receive 3x bonus points on any donut order through the mobile app on April 1.

Urban Outfitters launches 'Name Three Shirts' movement

Urban Outfitters said it is launching a global movement to "stand in solidarity against band-tee-shaming" by launching a new collection called "Name Three Shirts."

The t-shirt line "playfully mocks the gatekeeping attitudes of older generations who insist that band-shirt wearers should be required to name songs by those artists," the company said in a news release.

The line, which features revamped logos from bands such as The Grateful Dead, Joy Division and Led Zeppelin, is a "playful jab at the attitudes of older generations, and fights back against the misogynistic undertones of the infamous ‘name three songs’ line of questioning," Urban Outfitters said in the news release.

The collection of shirts is available online and in select Urban Outfitters stores starting April 1. You can shop the collection online here .

Auntie Anne's, Frontier Airlines collaborate on Pretzel Plane

Auntie Anne's pretzels and Frontier Airlines announced they have collaborated on the newest addition to Frontier's fleet: the Pretzel Plane.

According to a news release, the plane includes new in-flight entertainment featuring Auntie Anne's pretzels rolled seat-side, the "luxurious" smell of hot, fresh pretzels throughout the cabin and airplane-shaped pretzels if you're feeling hungry.

Moe's Southwest Grill, Sonic team up to introduce a Queso Slush

Two popular fast food chains announced a collaboration that is sure to be polarizing.

Moe's and Sonic announced a new beverage, the Queso Slush, a queso-flavored slushie. "The frozen goodness of a Sonic Slush meets the delicious flavor of Moe's queso."

Follow Mike Snider on X and Threads:  @mikesnider  & mikegsnider .

Gabe Hauari is a national trending news reporter at USA TODAY. You can follow him on X  @GabeHauari  or email him at [email protected].

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