Identity, Self‐concept and Young Women’s Engagement with Collaborative, Sustainable Fashion Consumption Models.

The purpose of this journal was to better understand fashion overconsumption from the perspective of one in constant pursuit of their ideal identity, fueling one to shop more to curate this ideal identity expression. The authors also wanted to understand the motivation for sustainable fashion consumption. They explain young women, their sample group, are more concerned with individual expression of sustainable fashion than the social and environmental benefits it presents. The author introduces collaborative consumption models such as second hand stores, borrowing, or renting to tackle the environmental concerns fashion brings. Fashion is inherent in our social and individual identity formation, but if it is harming our planet and future, we need to find ways to go about fashion and identity expression in sustainable ways. The authors include, “In collaborative consumption, the social setting becomes paramount, as consumers are asked to actively shun possessiveness, instead embracing the act of sharing as well as access to shared goods,” (McNeil et. al, 369), introducing social processes to fashion and sustainability. 

There is a common social behavior of the need to belong in a group yet maintain a degree of individuality. This journal demonstrates this process by interviewing young women and observing their buying behaviors in tune with society and their individual identity. They express their intentions for “feeling like a change” that coincide with their attitudes, and they look at fashionable trends in society (exchanged through social media in most cases) to do so. 

Emotional motivators are key to fashion consumption as they reported pleasurable emotions for seeking out apparel that represents their ideal self-concept. The sustainable consumption of sharing brings out positive emotions, not for the clothes themselves, but in bettering an interpersonal relationship. Participants linked fashion consumption on par to their individual identity as identifiers of life stages and strong relationships, highlighting fashion’s role in group and self identity construction and the role it can play in “fitting in”. Some, but not all, participants expressed dissatisfaction with the fashion industry and their ethical relations with environmentalism, therefore sought after sustainable forms of consumption themselves. 

This journal speaks to the central problem of identity expression through fashion with the ethical and social associations of the environment and group dynamics. 

Word Count: 368