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Educating for Sustainable Fashion: Using Clothing Acquisition Abstinence to Explore Sustainable Consumption and Life Beyond Growth

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Abstract

This paper reports outcomes from a research study whereby fashion-oriented students experienced life where the ability to acquire new clothing was removed. Students volunteered to participate in this experiential learning challenge, titled the Fashion Detox: to abstain from clothing acquisition for 10 weeks and reflect about the experience. This learning experience was characterized by barriers to sustainable consumption, chief among them a range of temptations prompted by inescapable merchandising and marketing strategies, compulsive tendencies, and envy of those who could consume with impunity. Students also indicated many benefits to abstaining from acquisition, such as creativity and self-regulation. This teaching and learning experiment has important implications for the challenges faced by educators who must engage fashion-oriented students in sustainability topics and how these may be navigated.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Design, Housing, & Merchandising, Oklahoma State University, 434A Human Sciences, Stillwater, OK, 74078-6142, USA

    Cosette M. Joyner Armstrong & Mary Ruppert-Stroescu

  2. Department of Apparel, Textiles, and Interior Design, Kansas State University, 321 Justin Hall, Manhattan, KS, USA

    Kim Y. Hiller Connell & Melody L. A. LeHew

  3. Department of Textiles, Apparel Design and Merchandising, Louisiana State University, 125 Human Ecology Building, Baton Rouge, LA, USA

    Chunmin Lang

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  1. Cosette M. Joyner Armstrong
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  2. Kim Y. Hiller Connell
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  3. Chunmin Lang
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  4. Mary Ruppert-Stroescu
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  5. Melody L. A. LeHew
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Correspondence to Cosette M. Joyner Armstrong.

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Joyner Armstrong, C.M., Connell, K.Y.H., Lang, C. et al. Educating for Sustainable Fashion: Using Clothing Acquisition Abstinence to Explore Sustainable Consumption and Life Beyond Growth. J Consum Policy 39, 417–439 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10603-016-9330-z

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