Ethical Consumption inFashion

Abstract In the last few years it has been seen that peoples interest in environmental as well as ethical issues is rapidly growing. Recently sustainability has been recognized as a vital concern for numerous retailers in the United Kingdom. The purpose of the study carried out is to explore the perceptions attitudes of consumers in relation to ethical and fairly traded clothing. Following a thorough literature review, it was seen that there exists an “Ethical purchasing gap”. It can be seen from empirical evidence that a growing number of individuals have absorbed and are immensely encouraged by the principles of ethical consumerism; however an alteration in their consumption behaviour was comparatively less evident. In this study, Ajzen’s (1991) Theory of Planned Behaviour was utilized to comprehend the buying decision-making procedure of the ethically minded consumers. To gain a better understanding of the “intention behaviour gap” a qualitative research study was carried out. The research set out to explore whether customers nowadays care about ethics to influence their buying behaviour. The findings from the study state that the majority of the consumers today pay little heed to ethical concerns while making their decision to buy a particular product. Consumers have complained about the lack of information provided to them. They have also stated they face time constraints and ethical and fairly traded clothing is not easily accessible. Hence it can be recommended from the findings that the “Intention-Behavior” gap can be bridged if more awareness is provided to consumers about ethical and fairly traded clothing is easily available at a competitive price