How Social Media Is Driving Sustainability and Ethics in the Fashion Industry
The sustainable fashion industry is gathering pace as consumers start to believe more about what they buy and make an effort to lessen the impact of their purchases. Part of the explanation for the growing success of sustainable and ethical fashion is social media and its power to educate, share stories about brands, good and bad, alert consumers to the vast amount of preference that is offered, create communities and allow individuals to become key influencers as they to make their views and style choices known for their peers and the brands which they buy from.
Social activism has become a significant force for change and has had particularly notable results regarding sustainability in the fashion industry 먹튀검증. To date Greenpeace's campaign to detox fashion has attracted over 400,000 supporters. Greenpeace promoted its campaign primarily through social media with an engaging Japanese anime style YouTube video. Additionally they encourage supporters to join their Facebook page and Tweet their support. The campaign has been hugely successful with numerous fashion retailers agreeing to wash up their supply chain like the world's largest fashion retailer, Zara and the world's largest jean manufacturer, Levi's. Greenpeace also encouraged individuals to submit an Instagram photo with the name of the company which they wish to see detox next for the chance to star within their next campaign.
Labour Behind the Label is really a campaigning organisation raising awareness of ethical issues in the fashion industry. Recently it required Adidas pay US$1.8 million in severance owed to 2,800 workers from its former Indonesia supplier, PT Kizone and attracted over 50,000 supporters. Labour Behind the Label have also instigated numerous other campaigns including a call for brands to ban sandblasted denim by encouraging supporters to, amongst other items post to the brands Facebook page with a link back to the campaign website. This isn't initially that Adidas have discovered themselves a subject of the public's disagreement expressed through social media. In June 2012, the brand withdrew its shackle trainer when, its debuton their Facebook page (ahead of its market release) prompted comments criticising the look as a symbol of slavery.
Along with increasing awareness and driving change in relation to bad practices in the fashion industry, social media in addition has become a positive force in spreading news of companies which are getting into right, making a difference and have a good story to tell. Social Media includes a selection of different platforms and networks which are being used to simply help ethical brands tell their stories. YouTube is probably the mostly popular and for AW13 London Fashion Week, some ethical fashion videos were broadcast included in Estethica before being posted on YouTube where they could be viewed, distributed through other social media and posted in blogs.
The significance of social media to marketers is due to the way so it can drive and accelerate social proofing. Social proof is the way in which that we validate what's standard by taking a look at the behaviour of others. Social media greatly magnifies this process by allowing us access to a much greater amount of people to validate ourselves against than many people could experience in the offline world. The strong online communities of influencers and advocates of sustainable and ethical fashion that grow on social media platforms play an integral role in this social proofing.
Toms Shoes is merely one interesting example of an ethical fashion brand that has managed to bridge the gap between the ethical and mainstream fashion market. Behind this success story is probably their ability to share with a great story using social media. Their 1 day without shoes Campaign encouraged users to spend one day without shoes and to tweet about their experience utilizing the #withoutshoes hash tag. They amplified this message by partnering with AOL asked consumers to simply help distribute the #withoutshoes messages to over 1,000,000 before the function date and celebrity retweets gave a further boost. Tom shoes have also proved favored by fashion bloggers and on outfit sharing websites but it's difficult to share with if this really is partly a reason behind effect of their social media popularity, perhaps a bit of both.
Within the various social media platforms are communities comprised of people with an curiosity about a particular subject, their impact however extends well beyond their actual community and the more they interact, the more they grow. You will find numerous social media communities which are driving change in consumer habits by encouraging fashionistas to make do and mend, upcycle and wear vintage and second hand clothing. This along with a move from trend led looks to individual style statements is helping to change what's considered cool. Street style photographs, fashion blogs and outfits sharing websites all help to inspire rather than dictate how people should dress and have helped to create of a democratisation of fashion where consumers do have more choice and access to additional brands than those available on the high street. Even the thought of buying less is now a topic of much discussion on social media as bloggers accept challenges to appear stylish for per week, month or even a year simply by wearing limited pieces of clothing or without buying anything new. Perhaps one of the very most popular of those challenges may be the Uniform Project where one girl pledged to wear only a little black dress for 365 days as an exercise in sustainable fashion but there have been many more. Labour Behind the Label also runs a challenge called the six items challenge to simply help raise both funds and awareness of the problems surrounding ethical practices in the fashion industry.
As the planet of social media and fashion 2.0 continues to expand and develop, so too will the ways where we discover, share, become informed about and consume fashion. Hopefully social media will continue to empower consumers allowing fashion conscious individuals to embrace both style and sustainability and brands to find new models for working that ensure they are practicing and communicating their ethics in the most truly effective way. Social media has opened communication and this may only be a good thing in terms of increasing transparency and choice in the fashion industry.