The trend that slow down the apparel industry: Sustainable fashion

The increasing population, advancing technology and industrialization in our world in recent years; causes the limited natural resources to be consumed fecklessly. The increase of consumption in all fields destroys natural resources and affects natural life negatively as a result of environmental problems. In order to find solutions to these problems, the concept of sustainability in industrial and manufacturing activities has gained importance. Fast fashion seems to be one of the most important problem of this issue from the view point of textile and apparel industries. With the fast fashion that has become the cheapest fashion in recent times, products are aged quickly, causing too much consumption and generating tons of waste. The concept of sustainability reveals as sustainable fashion in textile and apparel industries to reduce the stated and potentially available problems. In this study, the concept of sustainable fashion, which was appeared as an alternative to fast fashion in textile and apparel industries, was investigated. The first part of the study deals with various viewpoints of fast fashion, sustainable fashion and slow fashion. In addition, eco-fashion, ethical fashion, 3R, recycling and upcycling topics were mentioned. Afterwards, survey forms were separately prepared for understanding the level of consciousness, awareness, perspective and attitudes of designers, manufacturers and consumers on mentioned issues. Consumer part of the survey was conducted with 860 random participants from different cities of Turkey. 50 participants who were manager and owner of apparel firms located at different cities of Turkey, were joined to the survey created for manufacturers. Designer survey is completed by 30 designers from randomly selected apparel companies in different cities. The results obtained were evaluated, opinions and ideas of these three elements (designer, manufacturer and consumer) in the production-consumption cycle, were learned and their approaches and attitudes were determined and suggestions were made.