Wool Meets Fast Fashion Part 2
Sustainability = Marketability
Last week, in Wool Meets Fast Fashion Part 1, I shared quite a few disturbing tidbits, from fast fashion’s destructive advertising campaigns to humans pooping plastic. Now that the full extent of the microfiber disaster is clear, persuading consumers to make buying choices that reduce pollution and keep farmers in business should be easier in 2019 than it was 50 years ago. But how?
If the wool industry is to not only remain viable, but flourish, in the 21st century, it must view every aspect of its supply chain through the lens of traceability and clearly convey the value of the inherent relationships. This marketing approach appeals to a growing global demographic, termed LOHAS, for Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability. Over 41 million American adults are classified as this type of consumer, making purchasing decisions primarily based on social and environmental awareness [1]. Third-party sustainability claims directly on a product label [2] can set wool apart from plastic-based textiles at the point of sale. The International Wool Textile Organization and the Campaign for Wool have recently released a set of sustainability and animal welfare standards, known as the Dumfries House Wool Declaration, in order to uphold ethics across the industry; the next critical step is to get these standards directly in front of consumers.
Unlike synthetic fiber, wool has provenance. In her article “Wool is 44% Carbon,” Seema Goel describes her project of transforming 30kg of wool into yarn and felt with the help of her community in Inishowen, Ireland. A byproduct of the project was the “re-injection of value into wool” and the awareness that “the wool itself functions as a portrait of Inishowen made literally of the earth, air, and water of the area; it represents the landscape completely” [3, p. 186]. Contemporary consumers are searching for the lost connection to their farmers and the natural world, and evidence suggests they will pay more for woolen clothing that clearly expresses this connection [2].
Consumers can adopt new purchasing habits in a relatively short amount of time. The marketing of synthetics changed the norms of clothing consumption and deliberately altered fiber preferences in less than a century. Fortunately, the world of marketing has changed too, and in the present social media landscape consumers are the “ultimate power brokers” who can expose the sustainable or unsustainable practices of clothing companies to thousands of people within seconds [1, p. 133] and exert a real bottom line impact.
The microplastic problem caused by synthetic clothing is a 21st century problem requiring a 21st century marketing approach to solve it. Recent inventions like modern plastic-based fibers that do not shed as readily and microfiber catchment bags for use in washing machines attempt to address the issue. Although they might serve as short-term mitigation techniques, these products completely ignore the root of the problem and therefore cannot be called solutions; their use is inherently dependent on fast fashion’s unsustainable preference for synthetic clothing. The only viable way to stop microfiber pollution for good is for consumers to halt the demand for synthetic textiles and embrace plastic-free clothing once again. We’ve seen the success of well-directed marketing campaigns in fashion before. Today, environmental advocates across the supply chain can use contemporary marketing frontiers to broadcast the ecological and social benefits of a vibrant wool industry. The demographic of consumers willing to pay more for sustainable clothes is growing, and with it, the demand for wool can too. Wool clothing embodies a collaboration between consumers, farmers, sheep, and land; its very existence demonstrates that humans don’t have to sacrifice the planet for fashion.
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[1] |
P. Kotler, “Reinventing Marketing to Manage the Environmental Imperative,” Journal of Marketing, Vol. 75, No. 4, pp. 132-135, 2011. |
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[2] |
H. H. Peterson, G. M. Hustvedt and Y.-J. Chen, “Consumer Preferences for Sustainable Wool Products in the United States,” Clothing and Textiles Research Journal, Vol. 30, No. 1, pp. 35-50, 2012. |
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[3] |
S. Goel, “Wool is 44% Carbon,” Leonardo, Vol. 45, No. 2, pp. 186-187, 2012. |
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[4] |
International Wool Textile Organization, “The Dumfries House Wool Declaration,” Wool Review, Issue 1, p. https://iwto.digitalmag.co.za/issue1/, 2017. |
Anna
Anna is a knitter extraordinaire who lives in Mecklenburg NY, who prefers using wool and other natural animal fibers in her work. Inspired by her love of textiles she is now looking forward to pursuing a Graduate degree in Museum Studies starting the fall of 2019.
